11 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About the McLaren F1
In 1988, Gordon Murray, Ron Dennis, Mansour Ojjeh, and Creighton Brown were sitting in an Italian airport, waiting for a flight home after the Italian Grand Prix. The brain trust behind the McLaren Formula 1 team was chatting about production cars, and Murray began sketching out a vision for the ultimate road car on a legal pad. By the time the quartet touched down in England, the fundamentals for the McLaren F1 were completely mapped out. In December 1992, a mere 34 months after Murray’s pen touched paper, the first McLaren F1 prototype was on the road.
The naturally-aspirated 6.1-liter BMW S70/2 V12 engine produces 618 horsepower, 479 lb-ft of torque, and is mated to a six-speed manual and, with the right hot shoe, can rip to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. It remains an engineering marvel. With a top speed of 240.1 mph, it’s still the fastest naturally-aspirated production car.
You know all the accolades and world record achievements that deservedly followed—the McLaren F1 is one of the greatest road cars ever produced—but here are 11 McLaren F1 facts you may not be familiar with.
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