New World Record for McLaren F1 supercar set by RM Auctions

[LeonOfTheDead]

Originally Posted by Bleeding Heart

Probably, it is both the price and the car itself...

The McLaren is a very incredible car... tAlthough it has a little handling and gearbox issues, it doesn't changehe fact that it was a very great car... The McLaren F1 is the car that held the speed record for a number of years... Because of its achievements, it has earned its plce in automotive history... That's why it cost so much... You will not just drive an absolutely astonishing car, you're also driving a little piece of automotive history with it...

the car already had a scarring price when new, its price was 1 M $ when a Ferrari F50 (in Italy) was sold for about 550.000 $

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

The SLR was actually a Merc as well as a McLaren, the F1 wasn't a BMW. Zonda anyone?

MB provides Pagani with engine, transmission and all the electronic stuff related to them upon Pagani's own specifics.

Originally Posted by Equinox

Ummm, no, they are not Jaguar XJ220's (Which as of a few years ago just sold their last new car.)

...source?

[NSXType-R]

Originally Posted by Equinox

Ummm, no, they are not Jaguar XJ220's (Which as of a few years ago just sold their last new car.) All of the McLaren's were sold soon after they were built.

And as Street_Dreamer said, BMW only supplied the engine, and did nothing to build the car itself. Gordon Murray actually wanted to build the car to out do another car (A ferrari F40 if I remember right.) Then he drove a Honda NSX, and after driving the NSX, said he had a new benchmark of achievement to make with the McLaren. He went to Honda to supply the engine, but they did not meet his specs. Then along came BMW and not only made his specs, but they did better. He wanted to put a V8 or V10 engine (If I remember right.) In the car originally, but BMW came out with the V12 and it had everything Gordan wanted so he went with it.

That's how Gordon got the name for the McLaren. He was joking around and said they should call it the McLaren F1, because Ferrari had the F40 and McLaren was going to be 39 steps ahead of the Ferrari. So he said F1.

He wanted an engine from Honda? Serious? I didn't know that.

[f6fhellcat13]

Originally Posted by NSXType-R

He wanted an engine from Honda? Serious? I didn't know that.

Would it have been turboed?

[Ferrer]

Originally Posted by LeonOfTheDead

MB provides Pagani with engine, transmission and all the electronic stuff related to them upon Pagani's own specifics.

Gearbox too? I doubt Daimler has a manual that can cope with the immense torque of the V12.

Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13

Would it have been turboed?

Nope. It was due to the McLaren-Honda link in the F1 cars.

By the way I don't think turbos are a Honda speciality.

[Equinox]

Originally Posted by NSXType-R

He wanted an engine from Honda? Serious? I didn't know that.

Yeah, I'm seriuos

When Gordon Murray first started to develop the McLaren F1, Honda and McLaren were partners in Formula 1 racing. (Honda supplied McLaren with engines for the race car.) So naturally, he went to Honda to supply engines for McLaren's road car. But Honda could not meet Gordon's spec's for the engine. (Honda offered Gordon a V10, but it did not meet the spec's.) So Honda dropped the idea and BMW offered him there engine which was the V12we know today.

LeonOfTheDead, I'll try and find a source for that... It was a while ago now, so I'll have to do some archiving

But I can tell you that a lot of people were dissatisfied with the car (Jaguar XJ220) , which is why it took so long to sell all of the cars. When the car was first developed it was to have a V12, 530-bhp engine and was supposed to be four-wheel drive. But the V12 was dropped for design issues due to the size and it was difficult to for it to pass emissions laws at the time. Then they put a 3.5 L V6 with Garrett T3 turbochargers. It had around 540 something horsepower... 549 bhp if I am correct. Customers complained about the noise from the exhaust and the turbo lag. The all wheel drive was dropped as well for a rear-wheel drive set-up. By the time the car came out in 1992, their was a bad economic downturn. The car couldn't justify its asking price of $625,000 at the time. Not to mention all the changes Jaguar made were after a handful of customers already placed orders, and when Jaguar changed most of the cars design, those customers where not happy and threatened to sue. A lot of them cancelled their orders which is why it took so long to sell all the cars.

I'll still look for a source, but this is what I can tell you right now... Hope it helps some.

[Street_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by Ferrer

Gearbox too? I doubt Daimler has a manual that can cope with the immense torque of the V12.

Nope. It was due to the McLaren-Honda link in the F1 cars.

By the way I don't think turbos are a Honda speciality.

I agree with Ferrer. Merc aren't too famous for their manual transmissions; they may have helped Pagani develop it, but i doubt it's purely merc.

I also read somewhere it was because of the very high standard of Honda engines at that time, along with the clearly (very) large factor of them being F1 partners.

[2ndclasscitizen]

The Zonda uses a Cima gearbox IIRC, same as the Koenigseggs.

[Guibo]

Honda indeed were an interested partner. Murray had a short list of manufacturers that might be able to build large-capacity normally aspirated engines with 100 hp/liter specific output: Ferrari, BMW, and Honda. Honda, the most natural choice, was really interested when he originally specified an engine of around 3.5 liters, but with the new crop of supercars coming out, he raised his capacity requirement to 5.3 liters. At that point, Honda dropped out. BMW came in, and though they missed his weight requirement, they made up for it in power (627 vs the planned 550 hp).

[Equinox]

Well said Guibo. I wonder what would have happened had Honda meet the requirements and the McLaren F1 had a Honda engine in it.

[apple HEAD]

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum...2&d=1225354296

Thats genuine gold i believe!

the most suitable insulation for that particular situation?

[LeonOfTheDead]

Originally Posted by Ferrer

Gearbox too? I doubt Daimler has a manual that can cope with the immense torque of the V12.

Nope. It was due to the McLaren-Honda link in the F1 cars.

By the way I don't think turbos are a Honda speciality.

that's what they told us during the visit, and what I read on mags.

Originally Posted by Equinox

LeonOfTheDead, I'll try and find a source for that... It was a while ago now, so I'll have to do some archiving

But I can tell you that a lot of people were dissatisfied with the car (Jaguar XJ220) , which is why it took so long to sell all of the cars. When the car was first developed it was to have a V12, 530-bhp engine and was supposed to be four-wheel drive. But the V12 was dropped for design issues due to the size and it was difficult to for it to pass emissions laws at the time. Then they put a 3.5 L V6 with Garrett T3 turbochargers. It had around 540 something horsepower... 549 bhp if I am correct. Customers complained about the noise from the exhaust and the turbo lag. The all wheel drive was dropped as well for a rear-wheel drive set-up. By the time the car came out in 1992, their was a bad economic downturn. The car couldn't justify its asking price of $625,000 at the time. Not to mention all the changes Jaguar made were after a handful of customers already placed orders, and when Jaguar changed most of the cars design, those customers where not happy and threatened to sue. A lot of them cancelled their orders which is why it took so long to sell all the cars.

I'll still look for a source, but this is what I can tell you right now... Hope it helps some.

Yeah, I knew the history behind the XJ220 and its floors, but didn't know it took so long to sell all of the cars

Originally Posted by 2ndclasscitizen

The Zonda uses a Cima gearbox IIRC, same as the Koenigseggs.

the Cima will be used on the next Cinque version, don't know about the R version.

Pagani don't produce the gearbox, that I can assure you, the factory consists of three rooms, and I visited all of them. nor I ever hear that they bought it from a different source.
I know about the weird MB manual gearboxes, maybe they (AMG) are able to meet decent stadards since the car is produced in so low figures and the costs of the part itself isn't really an issue considering the car starts at 600.000 €

[apple HEAD]

the group B metro 6R4 had the same engine less the chargers! Quite worrying really

i believe the engine started out life as the rover 3.5 v8 out of the SD1 but they ended up chopping two cylinders off to make it a 3 litre v6.

i think jaguar initally planned to use a v12 version of this engine but decided on charging the v6.

or were they going to use a different v12?

[Ferrer]

Originally Posted by apple HEAD

the group B metro 6R4 had the same engine less the chargers! Quite worrying really

i believe the engine started out life as the rover 3.5 v8 out of the SD1 but they ended up chopping two cylinders off to make it a 3 litre v6.

i think jaguar initally planned to use a v12 version of this engine but decided on charging the v6.

or were they going to use a different v12?

IIRC the Metro 6R4 was meant to originally have a 2.5 litre V6 derived from the Rover V8 engine.

But in the end it had a 3 litre V6 which was almost bespoke.

[apple HEAD]

me bad and you right. it was powered by a David Wood designed bespoke 3-litre V6 powerplant which used some of the engine architecture of the Cosworth DFV. It featured twin overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. The engine was a break from the norm, as it wasn't turbocharged as the majority of its competitors were.

im afraid i was horribly miss-informed and am glad i now know the truth thanks

[NSXType-R]

Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13

Would it have been turboed?

How am I supposed to know the answer to that question?

Originally Posted by Ferrer

Gearbox too? I doubt Daimler has a manual that can cope with the immense torque of the V12.

Nope. It was due to the McLaren-Honda link in the F1 cars.

By the way I don't think turbos are a Honda speciality.

Well by all means Honda isn't a turbo specialist, but the Acura RDX has a turbo engine that I heard is quite good.

Originally Posted by Equinox

Yeah, I'm seriuos

When Gordon Murray first started to develop the McLaren F1, Honda and McLaren were partners in Formula 1 racing. (Honda supplied McLaren with engines for the race car.) So naturally, he went to Honda to supply engines for McLaren's road car. But Honda could not meet Gordon's spec's for the engine. (Honda offered Gordon a V10, but it did not meet the spec's.) So Honda dropped the idea and BMW offered him there engine which was the V12we know today.

LeonOfTheDead, I'll try and find a source for that... It was a while ago now, so I'll have to do some archiving

But I can tell you that a lot of people were dissatisfied with the car (Jaguar XJ220) , which is why it took so long to sell all of the cars. When the car was first developed it was to have a V12, 530-bhp engine and was supposed to be four-wheel drive. But the V12 was dropped for design issues due to the size and it was difficult to for it to pass emissions laws at the time. Then they put a 3.5 L V6 with Garrett T3 turbochargers. It had around 540 something horsepower... 549 bhp if I am correct. Customers complained about the noise from the exhaust and the turbo lag. The all wheel drive was dropped as well for a rear-wheel drive set-up. By the time the car came out in 1992, their was a bad economic downturn. The car couldn't justify its asking price of $625,000 at the time. Not to mention all the changes Jaguar made were after a handful of customers already placed orders, and when Jaguar changed most of the cars design, those customers where not happy and threatened to sue. A lot of them cancelled their orders which is why it took so long to sell all the cars.

I'll still look for a source, but this is what I can tell you right now... Hope it helps some.

Wow, that's some cool info there. Thanks!