MCLAREN F1

MCLAREN F1

The MCLAREN F1 passion  gets me noticed from time to time. I have a lot of people email me to ask questions about the MCLAREN F1, and I do the same when I find someone that appears to have had an MCLAREN F1 encounter or knows a piece of the story that I don't.

This past May I was contacted by a gentleman who had some questions about a few different F1s. His name was Scott and he claimed that he was trying to help a friend track down an MCLAREN F1 to buy. While that was a rare twist to the usual story I hear, I am always happy to share what I know with those who are interested in MCLAREN F1. I gave him the info I had, and we probably exchanged a total of six or seven emails - then I didn't hear from him again until the second week of August.

He wrote to ask if I was planning to be in Monterey for the Pebble Beach weekend. I explained that while I've always wanted to go, I never make plans early enough to attend. I figured that he was just hoping to meet up with me and talk more about the cars.
His response honestly floored me. He told me that he and his friend would be there in a silver MCLAREN F1 - chassis #068 - and that if I made it up there he would take me for a ride in the car.
I changed my tune on the reply that followed - I wasn't planning to miss the opportunity to see an MCLAREN F1, much less possibly get a ride in one. Of course I was still reeling from the shock of that offer. I told him I would be honored just to sit in the car MCLAREN F1, but that a ride would be awesome!
I knew who the current owner was of #068 - Frank Selldorff, for those who are familiar - and Scott confirmed that Frank had recently sold the car to his friend Richard. The MCLAREN F1 had been in storage at the BMW Port in New Jersey for the past two years, and was being readied for transport across the country to Monterey for that weekend.

MCLAREN F1

In talking with Mr Selldorff in the past, I knew that #068 still sat with just its delivery miles of somewhere under 200 after being built way back in 1997. He had purchased the car MCLAREN F1 in 2002, only to find there was no easy way of importing a MCLAREN F1 built after 1995 to the USA because the MCLAREN F1 would be required to meet OBD-II standards enacted by the EPA in 1996. Still wanting to own an MCLAREN F1 he could drive, Frank bought another one that was built in 1994 - chassis #007 - but had held onto #068 all this time. While he had it, he contracted a company to begin the process of converting #068 to meet those new EPA standards, something no one else had ever done. Although that process was eventually completed in mid-2003, he never took the car out of storage, and never drove it.

MCLAREN F1

Richard ended up finding out about #068 through MCLAREN F1 Cars, who knew the car was being stored in New Jersey. The BMW Port in Mount Laurel houses the East Coast's Official MCLAREN F1 Service Facility with a trained staff of mechanics to work on the cars. The other unique attribute of this particular MCLAREN F1 is that none of its three previous owners had ever registered the car, so technically this is almost a new car, some seven years after being built. Richard bought the car, had it serviced by the team in NJ and then planned to put it on a transporter headed for Pebble Beach. What a wonderful place to take the wraps off your MCLAREN F1. Really.
Scott sent me a photo of  MCLAREN F1 in an email that followed - probably to prove that he wasn't pulling my leg and we kept in regular contact over the next week to be sure that the car was going to make it, and plan to meet up in Monterey based on their schedule. At this point I was giddy with anticipation.