When Formula 1 racing car designer Gordon Murray wanted to build the ultimate road car, his boss Ron Dennis at McLaren gave free rein to the project. Arriving in 1992, the groundbreaking McLaren F1 was the first production car to feature a carbon fibre monocoque chassis.
The McLaren F1 was also notable for its three-seater layout with central driving position, and for using gold as engine bay insulation – although the few hundred pounds worth of precious metal paled into significance against the car’s half-a-million pound price tag.
That doesn’t sound a lot when you consider top modern hypercars very rarely cost less than £1m, but at the time it was more than double the price of the Bugatti EB110 GT and a fair chunk more than Jaguar’s XJ220. On the road, the McLaren F1 blew both into the weeds. It was an engineering feat that completely moved the goalposts for hypercars and set a new benchmark for performance.
The 6.1-litre V12 engine from BMW makes 618bhp, and took the McLaren F1 to an officially verified 243mph in March 1998. It was a new world record that wasn’t beaten until the Bugatti Veyron managed an extra 10mph, cracking 253mph in 2005.
