S1 LM fetches £15m at auction, sets record

Just five examples of the F1 GTR homage will be built - the final car suggests GMA is onto a winner

By PH Staff / Monday, 24 November 2025 / Loading comments

In case you were under any illusions about how the wider market views Gordon Murray’s S1 LM - the McLaren F1 GTR homage revealed to the world during Monterey Car Week - the only example of the five-car run to be offered to all comers has fetched $20m at auction in Las Vegas over the weekend. Or £15,772,773.78 to be exact. Which, according to Gordon Murray Special Vehicles, is the highest sale price for a new car sold at auction that wasn’t offered partly for the sake of charity. For some kind of reference, it’s basically the same amount (not correcting for inflation, mind) that someone paid for a McLaren F1 at auction back in 2021.

In other words, the market likes it very much. And why wouldn’t it? There’s a lot to like about a car that harks back to McLaren’s Le Mans winner stylistically, while also containing a bespoke version of the Cosworth-built V12 that develops 720hp at 12,100rpm. Oh, and GMA’s manual six-speed gearbox and a ‘race-inspired, road-perfected’ chassis. It was always intended as a wet dream of a hypercar (you can read the full story of its inception here) and that’s very much how it comes across in the flesh.

Well, we say ‘flesh’. This was less the auction of a car than a car-shaped space. The S1 LM in question will be the final version built, which is to say it hasn’t been yet. But the handy thing about that is now the auction victor gets to sit down with Professor Gordon Murray CBE himself and plot what their car will look and feel like. They’ll even get a unique 500-page monograph chronicling the S1 LM’s creation, which you’d assume will include some lovely snaps of development drives alongside Dario Franchitti, another boon of the arrangement.

“This world record auction result is a defining moment for our entire team and for the automotive world,” noted Murray. “The S1 LM represents everything I have learned in six decades of design – a pure expression of driving perfection, engineering art, and a true return to beauty. To see it achieve this scale of appreciation is truly humbling.” It does rather speak to the aspiration and resolve of the man who commissioned the S1 LM and still owns (to the best of our knowledge) the other four examples yet to be built. He has spoken of finding the ‘right kind of person’ to take ownership. Let’s hope they live up to his vision.