The McLaren F1 needs no introduction. It’s a staple of man harnessing machine and machine harnessing physics, a once-in-a-lifetime moment of automotive history. McLaren’s only made 106 of these bad boys, with the first rolling off the line back in ’92.
1992 seems like a long way back, and it is. That year Disney released Aladdin, and Nirvana’s iconic Nevermind went to no. 1 in the Billboard 200. The truth of the matter is, 1992 is 25 years ago. In English speak, that’s a silver jubilee, and thus, McLaren took the decision to celebrate the F1 with a series of videos focused around the 240.1 mph hypercar.
This particular video features Andrew Bagnall, who has owned his F1 for a little over 10 years. It’s a spectacular-looking thing, enhanced by what McLaren calls the extra high downforce package. Only two such vehicles were ever produced, with the package consisting of a carbon fiber rear, a go-faster front splitter, and louvers on the front clamshell.
“You really notice the extra downforce when you’re driving at speed on a circuit,” said Andrew, but that’s not all there is to his bite-the-back-of-your-hand beautiful bruiser. The F1 HDF also sports larger wheels than the regular model, a more serious suspension setup, and the LM race-specification 6.1-liter engine, which revs 1,000 rpm higher than normal.
In this configuration, the V12 blunderbuss develops a maximum of 680 bhp, which is downright staggering. “I’ve owned, raced, driven a lot of nice cars and most of them pass on to someone else after a few years, but this car is so extraordinary and I just love it so much every time I hop into it that I would feel real loss if I let it go,” concluded Andrew.
Numbers aside, the simple act of hopping in the car is a feast for the senses. The central driving position, the soft-touch leather, the nicely finished foot pedals with the brake and throttle positioned perfectly for hell-and-toe, the beautifully minimalistic instrument cluster, just about everything makes the blood boil with anxiety to get that motor fired up.
And as compared to most hypercar owners, who buy high-priced automobiles only to let them rot in the garage while going up in value, Mr. Bagnall takes out his beloved F1 High Downforce for a drive about once a month.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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