Rowan Atkinson puts his infamous, twice crashed McLaren F1 up for sale for the staggering price of £8 million
Car dealers often boldly describe vehicles they are selling as having “one careful owner” but in the case of Rowan Atkinson’s McLaren F1, they’d be best to steer clear of such remarks given that the comedian has crashed the vehicle twice.
Purchased new for £540,000 in 1997, Atkinson first front-ended the vehicle into a Rover Metro at Forton in Lancashire in 1999 and then crashed into a tree and lamppost in it in Haddon, Cambridgeshire in 2011. The second accident resulted in what is believed to be Britain’s highest ever single car insurance payout with the vehicle costing £910,000 to be rebuilt by McLaren.
Now for sale with London dealer Taylor & Crawley for the staggering price of £8 million, the McLaren is one of just 64 road-going F1 cars built by McLaren and goes from 0 – 60 miles per hour in just 3.2 seconds. It costs £30,000 to service the car every 6,000 miles and it does just 15 miles per gallon.
Of the vehicle, Taylor & Crawley’s David Clark commented:
“If I had the choice of buying a 1,000-mile McLaren F1 that has been hidden away or Rowan’s with 41,000 miles, I would take Rowan’s. It has the interesting history and this is what people look for”.
“A lot of cars are indicative of the people who own them, and a lot of serious car collectors own an F1 and that gives it great credibility. Jay Leno has one, Ralph Lauren has more than one”.
“It is pretty much a brand-new car too after the work carried out by McLaren. It’s got full tax and MOT and is ready to go”.
Atkinson himself added:
“I bought it for the quality of the thinking that went into its design, and now it has become a thing of value it is time for it to be enjoyed by someone else”.
“It’s so quiet, so comfortable that you can use it, and enjoy it, on any journey. Most of the miles I have done in it are journeys you might do in any other car – going to Sainsbury’s or doing the school run”.
“Probably my best moment in the car was just a few months after I took delivery. I remember driving down to Cornwall for a holiday with my two then very young children. We packed all our bags without problem, I put their child seats in the car, strapped them in and set off on the five-hour journey. I can remember looking at them a few minutes later and both were already fast asleep. And I thought to myself what kind of car was it that could seat three in such comfort, carry enough for a week away yet also do 240 miles per hour? There was no other then, and there is no other now”.
“What I enjoyed most about it when I first drove it was how lovely it was to drive slowly. To pootle is a pleasure”.
Subscribe to our free once daily email newsletter here: