{"id":188708,"date":"2018-04-04T10:19:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T09:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/opinion\/mclaren-f1-reinvented\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T08:15:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T07:15:45","slug":"mclaren-f1-reinvented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/road-cars\/mclaren-f1-reinvented\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren F1 reinvented"},"content":{"rendered":"
McLaren’s doing the unthinkable \u2013 bringing the F1 to the modern day<\/strong><\/p>\n
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Thirty years ago this September, four men found themselves at Milan\u2019s Linate airport, waiting for a flight. And while, if I may fractionally adapt the unimprovable prose of PG Wodehouse, they were not actually disgruntled, they were far from being gruntled. Not only was the flight delayed but perhaps more importantly, the McLaren MP4\/4s they had just watched taking part in the Italian Grand Prix<\/a> had failed to win for the first and, as it would turn out, the last time that season. Less than a month after the death of Enzo Ferrari, the Scuderia had somehow managed to contrive a 1-2 victory on home soil having not looked like getting a sniff at the McLarens all season. But we shall leave such spookiness for another time.<\/p>\n
The men were McLaren\u2019s Ron Dennis, Gordon Murray, Creighton Brown and Mansour Ojjeh. Bored and presumably keen to discuss anything other than Formula 1, the talk turned towards the idea of creating a McLaren street machine, a device unlike any to have set foot on the public road to date. In that Milanese departure lounge, the McLaren F1 was conceived.<\/p>\n
The curious thing about the car they duly started delivering to customers for \u00a3627,000 six years later was that not only was it unique at the time, but that it has remained so ever since, despite becoming perhaps the most revered and valuable supercar of them all. But the truth is that while conception might have taken place amid thundering herds of bull markets around the planet, the car was delivered into a rather more bearish world. And at the time at least, it was not a success. As many as 350 cars had been planned, but in the end just 106 were built, and then only as a result of it being turned into a racing car and sold to customer teams, which was never part of the original plan. Had it been so, Murray is the first to say he\u2019d have designed it a completely different way.<\/p>\n
Why all this now? Because while no one else has had the balls to re-invent the F1, it seems that these days, McLaren is not so squeamish. Later this year \u2013 one would hope on the occasion of the Italian Grand Prix but let\u2019s see \u2013 it will show us a car known only by its internal working title of BP23.<\/p>\n
It is a car clouded in mystery, which is exactly how McLaren wants it to be. But we know it will follow in the footsteps of the F1 in at least four distinct ways that no other McLaren made to date can claim. First, and most importantly, it will have the same arrow head three seat cockpit configuration as the F1. Second, it will be able to carry a great deal of luggage, just like the F1 and third it will be even faster than the F1, with a top speed of more than a pleasingly random 243mph. The F1 did 240.1mph.<\/p>\n
Did I say four things? OK, the fourth is that just 106 will be built, one for every F1 McLaren made.<\/p>\n
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