A Love Proclamation – McLaren F1

This, I argue, is the best supercar ever built! No matter how many records that are broken by ugly kit cars (yes, you SSC Ultimate Aero TT), 16 cylinder, quadruple turbo monsters (Bugatti Veyron), or weirdly named Kingseggs, the McLaren F1 will always hold the place as the one and only supercar for me.

Not that any self-respecting supercar owner would ever play golf, one could just do an easy test. See if you can fit a golfbag AND a passenger in any of the following cars: Bugatti Veyron, SSC Ultimate Aero TT, Ascari A10, Koenigsegg CCX, Jaguar XJ220, ANY mid-engined Ferrari (sauf le Mondial – if that’s even a Ferrari?) etc. and you’ll realise that a supercar needn’t be impractical.

Let’s just go through the basics of the McLaren F1. It has the true supercar layout with the driver in the middle, allowing two passengers on either side. It is still the world’s fastest naturally aspirated supercar, which if you think about it, is what really matters. The bulkhead of the engine bay is lined with pure gold as that is the best heat deflector. It has no fancy electronic trickery.  It has a manual gearbox and is still capable of a naught to sixty speed of three point two seconds. It has won Le Mans outright, something that the Bugatti, SSC or Koenigsegg will never do, although Koenigsegg talks about it.

All in all, a pretty impressive resumé. It is also worth twice as much now as it was new. Not even the SSC Ultimate Aero TT can shift owner despite its record claim to fame of being the world’s fastest production car.

Tags: Bugatti, F1, Koenigsegg, McLaren, SSC, Ultimate Aero TT, Veyron

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.