Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[flemke]

hurstg01 said:

flemke said:

vtgts300kw said:

Sway said:

As I understood it, pretty much all the Brunei collection were kept in utterly appalling conditions in effectively a rainforest! So I'm assuming that that bill was perhaps for a bit more than a 'refresh'... Happy to be corrected.

I'm not entirely sure how accurate that comment is wrt cars in the collection at the calibre of the F1's. There are images floating around online that show some of the halo cars in the collection, being kept in a glass showroom type setup on the roof of one of the large warehouses. I think a lot ( most? ) of the regular cars did suffer that fate, but it appears that some of the "important" were looked after.

I can assure you that not all of the halo cars were looked after. Some of the best were badly neglected.

Having seen one of the 'important' cars the day after it arrived in the UK still in its 'Brunei' condition, I can say that the condition of it wasn't like others that hadn't been to Brunei, but nowhere near I feel 'appalling' can be mentioned. It needed a good clean / detail both inside, outside and in the engine bay, a good thorough service, a few minor tweaks, fresh tyres and perhaps a refresh of the headlining and alcantara areas but apart from that, I'd have been happy to take ownership of it.

I cannot however comment on any of the others cars still in Brunei.

I'm not sure whether we are talking about the same car, but the factory guys told me that some of the alcantara/plastic components in the interior of one of the cars had effectively melted.

[flemke]

Peloton25 said:

flemke said:

That number - $600k - is very high.
Complete colour change and interior retrim are less than £100k (which includes VAT, which would not apply to a US car). HDK is rear wing, front wings/bumper/splitter, usually (but not necessarily) larger wheels and new tyres. There may be a couple additional pieces of bodywork involved, such as working around the rear deck and brake flap on the standard car, but all that would cost nowhere near the additional £350k implied in $600k total.
Put it this way: although it was a few years ago, the total cost of adding the HDK, respraying and retrimming the car, and installing the LM-spec engine was a lot less than $600k.

Since I'm the source named on the above, I'll clarify that while I did not see the invoices, that piece of information was relayed to me via a friend of the owner who I don't doubt. The figure mentioned was said to be the total of all the money spent on the car after purchasing it at auction the prior year. This included more than just the makeover as the car had quite a bit of deferred maintenance that required sorting as well, and it essentially left the factory as a "new" car.

The interior received more than just your traditional retrim, as 014 was redone inside as LM-spec, bringing it closer to that of an actual F1 LM than any other road car. This included the bare carbon driver seat shell of the LM with sectional padding, along with the LM parking brake handle and shift knob. It also included segmented padding on the passenger seats with gloss carbon on all exposed surfaces. On the exterior, the High Downforce Kit was added along with a new topshell making it the only F1 road car with three vents over each front wheel arch like the F1 LM.

All of this work was done at a time when the $ to £ ratio was very nearly 2:1. Still might not add up perfectly, but should give a little more clarity as to how the figure could have been achieved.

Another F1 owner one year prior wrote in Sports Car Market Letter magazine that he had spent $300K on the full refresh of his F1 which was in a similar state of disrepair when he acquired it. His rebuild didn't include any of the elements of the Downforce Kit or LM-bits inside so comparing against that, the figure quoted for 014 seems believable to me.

>8^)
ER

No question that one could, if one tried, spend $600k and indeed even more in refurbing an F1. I thought it was being suggested that a substantial portion of $600k was spent on just a repaint and retrim, and it was to that that I was responding.
Btw, I had them make up an "LM" parking brake handle for me. Cost less than a grand - maybe £600 IIRC - but the problem was that it did not function well. It is unpleasantly cold to the touch and, more important, the corners cut into one's hand. Not a good design; wood is actually better.

[VladD]

Flemke, after the talk of Rowan Atkinson's accident, it made me wonder what you would do if your F1 was lost, either through damage, fire or theft. On the assumption that it wasn't salvageable or ever recovered, would you consider buying another one and if so would you go through the process of changing it in the same manner as you have done with the current one?

[hurstg01]

flemke said:

hurstg01 said:

flemke said:

vtgts300kw said:

Sway said:

As I understood it, pretty much all the Brunei collection were kept in utterly appalling conditions in effectively a rainforest! So I'm assuming that that bill was perhaps for a bit more than a 'refresh'... Happy to be corrected.

I'm not entirely sure how accurate that comment is wrt cars in the collection at the calibre of the F1's. There are images floating around online that show some of the halo cars in the collection, being kept in a glass showroom type setup on the roof of one of the large warehouses. I think a lot ( most? ) of the regular cars did suffer that fate, but it appears that some of the "important" were looked after.

I can assure you that not all of the halo cars were looked after. Some of the best were badly neglected.

Having seen one of the 'important' cars the day after it arrived in the UK still in its 'Brunei' condition, I can say that the condition of it wasn't like others that hadn't been to Brunei, but nowhere near I feel 'appalling' can be mentioned. It needed a good clean / detail both inside, outside and in the engine bay, a good thorough service, a few minor tweaks, fresh tyres and perhaps a refresh of the headlining and alcantara areas but apart from that, I'd have been happy to take ownership of it.

I cannot however comment on any of the others cars still in Brunei.

I'm not sure whether we are talking about the same car, but the factory guys told me that some of the alcantara/plastic components in the interior of one of the cars had effectively melted.

.

[andyps]

I've just seen this piece from McLaren which indicates that at least one of the prototype P1s didn't become a carbon bodied car - http://cars.mclaren.com/featured-articles/pure-gol...

I'm trying to figure what this means in terms of the total numbers sold with the edition and XP but I don't think I understand well enough. Anyone know more?

[cc8s]

andyps said:

I've just seen this piece from McLaren which indicates that at least one of the prototype P1s didn't become a carbon bodied car - http://cars.mclaren.com/featured-articles/pure-gol...

I'm trying to figure what this means in terms of the total numbers sold with the edition and XP but I don't think I understand well enough. Anyone know more?

Only 5 pre-production cars should have become Carbon Series cars (a particular special edition). Another two (so far) have full Carbon bodies. Another has half Carbon and half paint, in an unusual livery. The rest should remain in paint, thus far

The official total number of P1s, excluding GTRs/LMs but including pre-production cars, is 397. That is 375 customer cars plus 21 pre-production cars:

Number built:
13 x eXperimental Prototype
5 x Validation Prototype
3 x Pre-Production
375 x production cars
http://cars.mclaren.press/en-gb/releases/322

GTRs comprise of 58 cars (inc. LM XP1) and there are to be 5 LMs.

BUT there are mystery cars.

[cc8s]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's right. I was toying with how much to post or not to post so stuck to the offical line for simplicity. The official line never mentioned the 2 SP cars There are a handful of cars of interest beyond these mentioned.

[Sway]

flemke said:

For starters, you may want to look for IMechE paper C466/007/93. It was written by Steve Randle, who designed most of the suspension on the car. The purpose of the paper was to explain the engineering principles applied, and particularly what I call the asymmetric bushes that were conceived and used to control compliance. This paper has 3 good drawings of F and R suspension.

Just had a look on the ImechE online library, nothing coming up with that document reference... Any idea of the title?

Once I've downloaded it, happy to make available to those for whom it would be of interest.

[crosseyedlion]

Concept and design of the McLaren F1 suspension systems
IMechE paper C466/007/93

I haven't been able to find it myself yet

[VladD]

Sway said:

flemke said:

For starters, you may want to look for IMechE paper C466/007/93. It was written by Steve Randle, who designed most of the suspension on the car. The purpose of the paper was to explain the engineering principles applied, and particularly what I call the asymmetric bushes that were conceived and used to control compliance. This paper has 3 good drawings of F and R suspension.

Just had a look on the ImechE online library, nothing coming up with that document reference... Any idea of the title?

Once I've downloaded it, happy to make available to those for whom it would be of interest.

I Googled it and found this thread. The guy there called "Le Man" claims to be able to supply a copy if you PM him.

[edit] It appears from that thread that Peloton25 may already have a copy. Hopefully he can confirm or deny at some point.

Edited by VladD on Tuesday 17th January 13:40

[crosseyedlion]

Its out there

[Sway]

Couldn't find a digital download however? I'm there in a couple of weeks for a presentation, I'll see if I can obtain a copy.

[flemke]

Sway said:

Couldn't find a digital download however? I'm there in a couple of weeks for a presentation, I'll see if I can obtain a copy.

Is there a way to use PH to host images? If so, I'll scan and post here.

[flemke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Apols if a stupid question - but what the actual, is a LM parking brake handle ? compared to a regular one ?

I can only assume its not one from the back wall at Halfrauds? http://www.halfords.com/motoring/car-accessories/i...

It's the yellow anodised lattice-structure in the left console/pontoon/spar thingy:


ETA: This shows the standard wood version:

Edited by flemke on Tuesday 17th January 15:57

[Soov535]

flemke said:

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Apols if a stupid question - but what the actual, is a LM parking brake handle ? compared to a regular one ?

I can only assume its not one from the back wall at Halfrauds? http://www.halfords.com/motoring/car-accessories/i...

It's the yellow anodised lattice-structure in the left console/pontoon/spar thingy:


ETA: This shows the standard wood version:

Edited by flemke on Tuesday 17th January 15:57

Oh lordy yes.

[Sway]

flemke said:

Sway said:

Couldn't find a digital download however? I'm there in a couple of weeks for a presentation, I'll see if I can obtain a copy.

Is there a way to use PH to host images? If so, I'll scan and post here.

Two ways - either through the regular image upload, which upon clicking should permit the image to be opened full screen, or uploading to photobucket or similar and posting the link to the full resolution version.

Much appreciated - we had a chat on here a couple of years ago about how they'd achieved the longitudinal compliance, still something that interests me.

[isaldiri]

cc8s said:

Only 5 pre-production cars should have become Carbon Series cars (a particular special edition). Another two (so far) have full Carbon bodies. Another has half Carbon and half paint, in an unusual livery. The rest should remain in paint, thus far

The official total number of P1s, excluding GTRs/LMs but including pre-production cars, is 397. That is 375 customer cars plus 21 pre-production cars:

Number built:
13 x eXperimental Prototype
5 x Validation Prototype
3 x Pre-Production
375 x production cars
http://cars.mclaren.press/en-gb/releases/322

GTRs comprise of 58 cars (inc. LM XP1) and there are to be 5 LMs.

BUT there are mystery cars.

21 pre production cars plus 2 series prototypes plus a few more?! Mclaren seem very adept at having pre production cars appear it has to be said under increasingly different names. I was pretty certain I had heard more than once from some MA people that 15 was all the xp/vp cars would be sold and I thought at the time (2014) that was already a pisstake....

[flemke]

Sway said:

flemke said:

Sway said:

Couldn't find a digital download however? I'm there in a couple of weeks for a presentation, I'll see if I can obtain a copy.

Is there a way to use PH to host images? If so, I'll scan and post here.

Two ways - either through the regular image upload, which upon clicking should permit the image to be opened full screen, or uploading to photobucket or similar and posting the link to the full resolution version.

Much appreciated - we had a chat on here a couple of years ago about how they'd achieved the longitudinal compliance, still something that interests me.

[flemke]

[flemke]

ETA: This drawing indicates that the wishbone is in two pieces, separated by a shim to enable caster adjustment. The production cars' wishbones were in one piece and not adjustable.

Edited by flemke on Tuesday 17th January 20:13