Friday 4th August 2017

McLaren F1 LM: Pic of the Week

The greatest McLaren ever built?

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You haven't forgotten about a McLaren celebration, nor is an F1 LM going to be sold; we just wanted to celebrate a great car once more time, particularly with the announcement of Gordon Murray's upcoming exhibition. Built to commemorate the McLaren F1's 1995 win at its first Le Mans with all six painted in McLaren Orange, the LM is a true race car for the road.

How to top a McLaren F1, you ask? Well, take bits from the GTR race car like a flat floor, straight-cut gears, wider wheels and a large carbon fibre wing engraved with 'GTR-24 Heures du Mans Winners 1995'. Oh yeah, and the GTR engine without the air restrictors. This meant that the LM was the most powerful F1, with 689hp pushing a car that weighed a little over 1,000kg...

Inside, the three seat design was maintained from the road car, but with a wider throttle pedal and some much needed helicopter-style headsets. And the reason for six cars? Well it was actually five plus a prototype, because five finished Le Mans in 1995. That makes it an incredibly rare sight, as well as a stupendously cool one, so get your desktop refreshed now!

Traditional (4:3)
Computer widescreen (16:10)
TV widescreen (16:9)

[RedSpike66]

Best car ever surely ? Not just best Mclaren ever ?

[hambroski]

What a pity that the exhibition is invitation only! PS - F1 is the best car ever for sure...

[lestiq]

Greatest car ever more like!

[trippy86]

Yeah gotta be Greatest Of All Time

[Joeguard1990]

No denying that the F1 is one of THE cars to own.

I don't know anyone who hates them!

[cc8s]

I'm sure that many petrolheads know by now that two of the Brunei LMs were not painted in Papaya Orange The idea that all 6 were painted in Papaya Orange was perpetuated by the factory (or at least by Gordon Murray), for an unknown reason to me.

[Plate spinner]

RedSpike66 said:

Best car ever surely ? Not just best Mclaren ever ?

Yeah, I'll not disagree with that

[m444ttb]

I adore the F1 in LM or standard guise. I paid a fair chunk of cash (as these things go) for the McLaren F1 book a few years ago. That's about as close as I'll ever get without a significant EuroMillions win.

Joeguard1990 said:

No denying that the F1 is one of THE cars to own.

I don't know anyone who hates them!

This being PistonHeads that person is bound to be along soon enough!

[Cold]

Plate spinner said:

RedSpike66 said:

Best car ever surely ? Not just best Mclaren ever ?

Yeah, I'll not disagree with that

Depends on your judging criteria, I suppose.

[giveitfish]

Saw one of these in the wild at Le Mans back in 2011 - cruising through Arnage village at about 8am on the Sunday morning. Still my best ever spot!

Le Mans 24 Hour, June 2011 by giveitfish, on Flickr

[F1GTRUeno]

giveitfish said:

Saw one of these in the wild at Le Mans back in 2011 - cruising through Arnage village at about 8am on the Sunday morning. Still my best ever spot!

Le Mans 24 Hour, June 2011 by giveitfish, on Flickr

GTR not an LM

Still obviously a mega, mega spot. Highlights the problems with owners of GTR's painting them Orange like the LM though.

[Krikkit]

Awesome subject aside, that's a dreadful image... Has someone re-saved it with masses of compression? Once blown up to desktop size it's a blurry mess.

[cc8s]

Krikkit said:

Awesome subject aside, that's a dreadful image... Has someone re-saved it with masses of compression? Once blown up to desktop size it's a blurry mess.

Here we go:
https://www.motoringresearch.com/wp-content/upload...

[Nik Attard]

Sorry about that guys, it looks like the image quality wasn't ramped up when saving.

The links should now work with the higher resolution images that will look a lot better on your desktops.

Nik

[anonymous-user]

Stunning car and first time I've downloaded a desktop pic!

Thanks PH!

[Speed_Demon]

Ohhhh my.

[TomScrut]

Definitely the McLaren I'd have given the chance! No contest looks even better than the standard F1

[RobM77]

The road standard F1 is my vote for the best road car ever built. That was the perfect road car designed by one visionary genius from a clean sheet of paper, which in my mind will always be purer and 'better' than a road car converted to a racing car, carrying with it all the compromises that a purpose built racing car doesn't have. My dream road car is a Mclaren F1 and my dream racing car is probably a Mclaren MP4/7 Formula One car (n/a V12). Something in between will never quite carry the same draw for me.

Those are just my thoughts after driving and owning a fair few pure bred road cars, pure bred racing cars, and road cars converted to racing cars! Feel free to disagree... I'm sure it's very good at the latter category, but I'll always prefer a specialist car designed for the job from the ground up.

Edited by RobM77 on Friday 4th August 17:09

[giveitfish]

F1GTRUeno said:

GTR not an LM

Still obviously a mega, mega spot. Highlights the problems with owners of GTR's painting them Orange like the LM though.

Apologies for the imprecision Was the one I saw actually 016R which is an actual converted Le Mans race car? And famous for briefly being cheaper to buy than my house. A better place to put money than bricks and mortar it turns out.

[Gun]

You can keep your LaFerraris and P1s, it'll take something monumental to remove the F1 from the top of my all time greatest list.