Rowan Atkinson is selling his Dark Burgundy McLaren F1 after owning it since new. 41,000 miles and two crashes later, here are his thoughts on why the F1 is the greatest supercar ever made.
'P380 GJM', otherwise known as chassis number 061 and the 49th F1 built, will sell for more than 10 million dollars because of its famous owner, because F1s sell for more than $10 million nowadays and because it's a rather famous car that was even used for a high-speed run back in the day.
Single-owner F1s also pop up very rarely for sale, and while Atkinson's was crashed twice, $1.4 million of his insurance company's money took care of any damage that was done to her. Could be worse.
Now, dealers Taylor & Crowley published an article written by David Clark with some rare pictures about Atkinson's time behind that wheel in the center, and in front of the 6.1 BMW V12. Did you know his car was specified with white on black dials, instead of the standard black on white?
On the topic of his favorite drives, the actor had this to tell us:
You can take the car to the race track or over mountain passes but what make it so different to other supercars is that you don't have to. You don't need to plan a long distance journey with military precision before it's worth getting out of the garage. You just get in and because it's so small, comfortable and practical, go and do the school run. Or the shopping. Really, the vast majority of the miles have been accrued doing outwardly very mundane trips.
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 240mph? There was no other then, and there is no other now.
Amen.
Photo credit: Nathan Wong