Diary of the Cheapest 12C in the world
Discussion
so few have asked for me to document this madness! so here goes!
some of you know me i tend to buy cars on a whim, keep for a while and move on when i get bored, recently bought an STO to, but had most things in the older and new supercar market!
one fateful night i was browsing CC, came across the fabled mclaren 12c sat at around 40k with no reserve with a few hours left, now id had a soco so i thought why not! so bid a few times, someone was bidding against me but ending up winning at 46995 plus fees, a bargain of new world order proportions and a win for me.
so after doing a bit of research on the reg i found this car had gone through several auctions and never really at a main dealer, the reason for this worried me, as last service was done by mclaren in 2022, a little bit of diggin later and found previous owners who had put a map on the car and changed various things so understandable the car wasnt wanted in the mclaren main dealer ring!.
so sent one of my transporters to go get the car from swindon after paying it off etc, brought her home,
first impressions were good, interior was fine, and generally car was in good nick and had decent amount of history with it, cas has had paint at some point and done badly in a couple of areas but i wasnt bothered as was never going to be a concourse car, i took the car out and used it for a couple weeks no issues at all bar a warning message for a tracker fault and a rattling exhaust heat sheild, it didnt miss a beat, left it parked up in my unit with the others on trickle charge and one of my staff took it out for a run last week and it electrically completly failed,eg no power at a set of lights, couldlt get out the car as emergecy pulls didnt drop the window etc, we went out to rescue him, pulled emergecy boot release and disconnected and reconnected battery and walah!! all good no issues! but very strange and dangerous at the same time!
cue my call to paul saunders at V engineering with a view to go through the car , service it and tell me the bad news!
so we dropped the car off last week and paul emailed us today giving us his findings and im very suprised!, needed a full service obvs! hes asked to do gearbox and clutch oil changes to although not due its worth doing, he also removed the map back to standard and sorted the battery issue with the car.
it needs 4 new tyres too.
will collect it back when hes done and run it and see how we get on, plan is to remove the comfort seats and fit something more sporty, and recommendations welcome, also will probaly wrap the car ,maybe in company livery not sure yet. will keep you updated on any issues etc i have with the car and happy to answer any questions or take some recommendations!
anyway few pics below!
some of you know me i tend to buy cars on a whim, keep for a while and move on when i get bored, recently bought an STO to, but had most things in the older and new supercar market!
one fateful night i was browsing CC, came across the fabled mclaren 12c sat at around 40k with no reserve with a few hours left, now id had a soco so i thought why not! so bid a few times, someone was bidding against me but ending up winning at 46995 plus fees, a bargain of new world order proportions and a win for me.
so after doing a bit of research on the reg i found this car had gone through several auctions and never really at a main dealer, the reason for this worried me, as last service was done by mclaren in 2022, a little bit of diggin later and found previous owners who had put a map on the car and changed various things so understandable the car wasnt wanted in the mclaren main dealer ring!.
so sent one of my transporters to go get the car from swindon after paying it off etc, brought her home,
first impressions were good, interior was fine, and generally car was in good nick and had decent amount of history with it, cas has had paint at some point and done badly in a couple of areas but i wasnt bothered as was never going to be a concourse car, i took the car out and used it for a couple weeks no issues at all bar a warning message for a tracker fault and a rattling exhaust heat sheild, it didnt miss a beat, left it parked up in my unit with the others on trickle charge and one of my staff took it out for a run last week and it electrically completly failed,eg no power at a set of lights, couldlt get out the car as emergecy pulls didnt drop the window etc, we went out to rescue him, pulled emergecy boot release and disconnected and reconnected battery and walah!! all good no issues! but very strange and dangerous at the same time!
cue my call to paul saunders at V engineering with a view to go through the car , service it and tell me the bad news!
so we dropped the car off last week and paul emailed us today giving us his findings and im very suprised!, needed a full service obvs! hes asked to do gearbox and clutch oil changes to although not due its worth doing, he also removed the map back to standard and sorted the battery issue with the car.
it needs 4 new tyres too.
will collect it back when hes done and run it and see how we get on, plan is to remove the comfort seats and fit something more sporty, and recommendations welcome, also will probaly wrap the car ,maybe in company livery not sure yet. will keep you updated on any issues etc i have with the car and happy to answer any questions or take some recommendations!
anyway few pics below!
Fantastic stuff, thanks for sharing, interested to hear how it goes.
I'm also glad to hear it's been to V, I like to tell myself that they can fix almost anything for a semi-affordable price and therefore that my own Mac ownership needn't end abruptly with a huge bill, so from a selfish pov, any information to confirm or deny that theory is most welcome!
samoht said:
Fantastic stuff, thanks for sharing, interested to hear how it goes.
I'm also glad to hear it's been to V, I like to tell myself that they can fix almost anything for a semi-affordable price and therefore that my own Mac ownership needn't end abruptly with a huge bill, so from a selfish pov, any information to confirm or deny that theory is most welcome!
paul and the team make it alot more affordable! I'm also glad to hear it's been to V, I like to tell myself that they can fix almost anything for a semi-affordable price and therefore that my own Mac ownership needn't end abruptly with a huge bill, so from a selfish pov, any information to confirm or deny that theory is most welcome!
Davyt said:
It’s going o be a fine line between buying off CC and buying a car off AT, hopefully things work out for the OP,,
I know of the black car that was on AT for a year that sold recently for under £60k.Had 50,000 miles but by all accounts in great condition with tip-top history.
Either way these are performance bargains at the moment.
Can't wait to read about your adventures, congratulations Kyle. Hopefully you can help dispel the on going ill conceived hangover that surrounds the 12C & McLarens reliability. They really are supreme British supercars and we should be supporting them, and you have. so I take my hat off to you.
You certainly have much bigger balls than me, but I get the impression from your posts you have the resources to absorb any issues if they did arise, so worth the gamble at that price.
When I saw the car I figured it was either an unbelievable bargain or an utter disaster waiting to happen. Sounds like it might end up being a bargain, I'm curious how it works out.
When I saw the car I figured it was either an unbelievable bargain or an utter disaster waiting to happen. Sounds like it might end up being a bargain, I'm curious how it works out.
CountyAFC said:
He bought the £50k 12C which is the subject of the thread.
It is, but you decided to say "That when he spent proper money he went Lamborghini"......which is not the subject of the thread and also not correct, given Kyle's 675LT, which I assume you would also agree is proper money and therefore your statement is incorrect.Gassing Station | McLaren | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff