Here's Why the McLaren F1 Is the Greatest Car Ever Made

This is a

mclaren

f1 and it is simply the best car

ever

made

. It was built in the mid-1990s. It was the fastest car in the world and basically has no equal. It's also quite valuable as one of these sold in 2017 for about 16 million dollars and this one is probably a little more valuable than most because it belongs to jay leno yes that's right I borrowed jay leno's

mclaren

f1 and today I'm going to review it to start. I should mention that you can take a look at it. Jay Leno's Garage on YouTube, which is a fantastic show w

here

Jay sees a lot of cool cars that he n

ever

got my hands on and sometimes also shows off cool stuff with his own cars.

You can also watch Jay Leno's garage on cnbc. which is also a fantastic show w

here

jay does cool things with all kinds of cars because jay leno lives the car enthusiast dream and this car might be the best example that the mclaren f1 is generally considered one of the best ever the times. Many car enthusiasts consider it the best car ever

made

. The F1 was designed in the early 1990s with the aim of being the ultimate road car and mclaren made just 106 units, including just 64 examples of regular mclaren f1 road cars like this one. true, there are only 64 of these on the entire planet and yes, they are worth millions of dollars, probably around 20 million for this example, which is an incredible figure, but then again, this car has an impressive legacy, it was the car fastest production car in the world for over a decade, which is a big deal because the title of fastest production car was constantly in contention during the 1980s, five different cars held the title at one time or another and then This came out in 1993, I was going over 240 miles per hour and nothing.

I got over it for a decade and then there's the racing success of this car in 1995 the mclaren f1 gtr which is basically a race car version of this car took part in the 24 hours of le mans which is the race of most prestigious and important resistance in the entire automotive world. It won outright by outperforming purpose-built racing cars, even though it was essentially just a racing version of a road car that came with turn signals and a license plate. It was amazing and of course there is so much more this car has a 620 horsepower bmw v12 it has three seats it has gold in the engine bay it has a modem and today I'm going to show you everything first I'm going to take you on a tour of this car and them To show you all the quirks and features of perhaps the

greatest

car ever created, I'll take it out on the road and then give it an excellent rating and for more of my thoughts on the F1, click.

Link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer where I also wrote a column about what it's like to spend the day with Jay Leno's McLaren F1. Alright I'm going to start with the quirks and features of the mclaren f1 here in this front compartment specifically I'm going to start by opening this front compartment it's quite similar to any other car you pull a small lever in the footwell and then it open it a little bit and then you come to the front and you can pull it up. the rest of the way and then it's open and as you can see this is not a storage compartment, there are storage compartments in this car, but we'll get to them in a second.

Instead, this one has a couple of interesting elements, one is the CD changer. This is a Kenwood 10 disc CD changer that was made specifically for the mclaren F1 and the reason it was made especially for the F1 is that the engineer of this car, Gordon Murray, did not find regular CD changers to be light enough for this car, so This is a specially lightened CD changer just for the F1, so how exactly do you get a specially lightened CD changer? Well, this one has aluminum magnets inside. How do you make aluminum magnetic? Aluminum is taken and then sprayed with an iron file. and jay told me that saved about six ounces, but anywhere you can save weight counts in a car like this.

Another item you have here is the tool kit which fits in this nice little pocket in the front compartment like you were going to be ripping into your mclaren f1 on the side of the road but again lightness was a theme here they wanted everything was as light as possible and that includes the tools in the tool kit, obviously I can't show you this on camera, but they are incredibly light, they're titanium, they're like the lightest tools I've ever felt, just to save a few ounces compared to normal tools. Other items worth mentioning in this front compartment, you can see that there are four different lids where you can place various liquids. the two in the back, the red ones are for brake fluid and then you have the gold one which is clutch fluid and the blue one in front which is windshield washer fluid or as they call it screen wash.

I also like the fact that there are a few mclaren f1 warning labels under here, my favorite is the one that says this area should be kept clean and dry, do not get this area wet, this area should be kept clean and dry, it's wonderfully British . Now, next, I want to talk about how to get in. the mclaren f1 which is actually a pretty simple process with unlocking the door you just press this silver button on the outside that has a keyhole on it and you push it and then the door opens and it has these cool butterfly doors with hinges. the a-pillar along the windshield the designers of this car say they were inspired by the toyota sarah, which is a small japanese compact car that came out about five years before the mclaren f1 and had similar doors, so the inspiration for the door design The crazy, crazy mclaren f1 in the world came from a little Toyota.

Now obviously I'm going to go up inside and show you all the quirks and features of the interior, but first I wanted to cover the door frame. You have two latches on the door frame. marked with an e and one marked with an l, now you pull the one marked with an l and this side storage compartment opens. Now you saw in the front that the front trunk is not really a trunk, it's full of stuff, so you can't store anything in there except mclaren. They didn't want this car to be usable, so they integrated a storage compartment into the side of the car, and a surprisingly large one at that.

If you're wondering why the latch is marked l, it's because it's the luggage compartment l for fairly simple luggage surprisingly there's a second compartment on the other side that also opens like that and that one is a little more interesting. I'll get to it in a few minutes. It is also worth noting that this compartment hides two interesting elements, this carbon. The fiber panel covers the battery, but it also contains this plaque detailing many of McLaren's racing victories, which is a strange place for it. You can also see that red button that activates the modem. Yes, this car came with a state-of-the-art modem in the 1990s, the F1.

It was so rare that you couldn't have dealers and technicians all over the world, so the modem was intended to make it easy to connect a computer to diagnose problems remotely from the factory if something went wrong, of course the modem now It is an old technology. and it only works with a very specific compact computer that went out of production decades ago, but mclaren still uses those computers to solve problems that arise in these cars. Now the other latch on the side here marked with an e is a little more obvious that it opens. You pull the engine cover and it opens.

I'll get to that in a minute. Now next we get into the mclaren f1 and obviously the first thing you notice is that this car has three seats. Yes, that's right, the driver sits right in it. In theory, this is better for visibility and performance. You are directly in the center. I mean, that's how all cars should theoretically be set up. It's just not very practical in most cars, but it worked in this one. The driver is in the middle and then the driver is flanked on either side by two rear or side seats, so if you have a passenger in the McLaren F1, they can decide which seat they want to sit in, you want to sit on the left. driver's side or right side, that's an option you don't have in many cars, but now you have it in the mclaren f1, obviously this improves practicality as you can carry one more person than basically any other supercar that has ever existed .

When you combine it with those little storage compartments on the side, this is actually a relatively practical car. Jay also told me that sitting in the middle seat here you have pretty good visibility because you're so far forward in the car that you're basically in front of the A pillars so they can't hide like pedestrians and crosswalks and you can't see them and also sit in this position basically means that you are so high up that it gives you the opportunity to dart around you. You are one of the most advanced things about this car, unlike many vehicles where there is a big, long hood in front of you that you have to deal with .

It's an interesting idea that hasn't been repeated since, but the mclaren f1 is famous for that now, speaking of the seats, there is a lot to say about the seats in this car, starting with the fact that they don't move when you buy a mclaren f1, although this car is over 20 years old, the factory still measures you and then they check and adjust the seat perfectly to your size and your specifications so that the seat is in place, obviously, if the seat was on rails or if It was a power seat which would add weight, so it was thought that a permanent fixed seat would be best. way to keep the weight down and it's the same with the steering wheel, the steering wheel doesn't move either, but again the factory will perfectly match the location of the steering wheel to your preferred driving position when you buy a mclaren f1 and it's the same thing.

With the pedals, you can move them forward or back a little depending on exactly where you want to sit, so when you buy a Maclaren F1 all of this is not very configurable for you, but you can configure it to your exact specifications. sized for an optimal driving position Now, another cool thing with the seats in this car are the seat belts. The passenger seats on both sides have fairly traditional regular seat belts on the left side, where normally the driver's side would be where the seat belt comes out. the left side of the car on the passenger side the right side comes off the right side of the car pretty standard pretty simple in the middle it's a little different there are essentially two belts one on the right side and one on the left side and you put them together and then The seat belt is put on, but it is worth noting that this car does not have a racing harness or a six-point belt, it is just a standard car seat belt, it is just a little different from normal due to the seat configuration central and the fact that there is no pillar directly behind the seat where you can mount the belt now, once you are seated in this car, the next thing you wonder is: how does the seat close?

The door is up there, how do you do it? It turns out that the door handles on this car are on the roof of the door, the door curves a little over the roof above the passenger seats, and you grab one of those door handles. and that's how you close the door, it's actually quite easy, even if you're sitting in the middle seat, it takes a little bit of reaching, but you can get there of course, your next question is how do you open the door? you get out because if you look at the door panel there's no handle on the door panel so how do you get out of this thing?

Well it turns out that McLaren integrated the interior door latch into the base of the passenger seat so you can pull up on this metal latch and that's what opens the doors. It's kind of hidden down there. I never expected the door latch to be on the seats, but in this car, it actually makes sense that you pull it, the door opens and you get out. Another element built into the base of those seats can be seen next to the door latch, there is a small storage pocket again, which makes this car a little more practical than you would expect from a standard supercar now because the seat is in the middle.

It gave McLaren the opportunity to flank the driver with controls to put a few controls on each side instead of having a big central control full of buttons and they took advantage of that opportunity. There's still legroom for passengers on both sides, but there are also these little carbon fiber tunnels flanking the driver's seat on either side with controls and we'll start again on the left and that's where you have the handbrake. . You can see it's just a pretty standard handbrake. You lift it to activate it. Leave it to deactivate now next to theParking brake here you also have the stereo controls, which are pretty standard stereo controls.

The one at the top is the power and volume button. You also have the bass and treble, which are little dials that you can turn. It seems pretty normal except there is a pretty cool control on this car and that would be that you can see under the volume dial that there is a dial for plus and minus, so what is it for? Well, change the disc or track depending on your preference. the button below toggles between the disc or the track, if you have it on you have the disc on and then when you turn the little plus minus style it changes the disc you are listening to, if you have it pressed then you are changing the track and then , when you adjust the dial a little more or less it changes the track you are listening to, it's actually a brilliant idea and saves you from having to put separate dials to change the disc and change the track. now, there in this little switch compartment you also have just the power window switch, the old power window switch, push it up or down, the window rolls up or down.

It's pretty simple, now we move on to a Couple of interesting things that happen when you put the seat in the middle and I'm going to start with the rear view mirrors. Now this car has a giant air intake on the roof that brings air into the engine, so the rear window is actually separated into two parts, there's one on the left and one on the right, so on this car There are two separate rear windows to look out and in the middle, where the air intake comes in. The engine has no rear window now, this would normally cause a problem, but McLaren has found a cool solution: it has two rear view mirrors, one for the left rear window and one for the side rear window. on the right, so you can always look back, but instead of in a normal car where you're looking at one rearview mirror, in this car you're looking at two, you also have two dome lights.

You can see that there is a ceiling light on. the left and a roof light on the right, double the roof lights and the mclaren f1, who knew now, that said, although you have two rear windows, two roof lights and two mirrors, there is one thing you can subtract by putting the seat in the middle and those would be the sun visors, you only need one, so this car has just one sun visor mounted in the middle, flanked on both sides by rear view mirrors, just a car set up like that. Now, next, we move on to the group of indicators. which has three buttons on each side of the cluster, on the left, you have a button for the defroster, you have a button for the fog light and then you have a dial that you can turn that puts the car in high downforce mode, I try it .

I don't want to get too technical in these videos, but I'm told that this turns on some fans under the car, which improved downforce and looks like it may have some effect on the rear wing, which now moves a little to the right. the gauge cluster has three more buttons one is the headlights just turn them on turn on the headlights then you have the hazard lights and then you have the wiper dial which you can turn to adjust the speed when you have the wipers on intermittently now talking . Of the wipers, this car has a standard wiper and a turn signal coming out of the steering column and I say standard because they actually came from BMWs of this era.

This is the same turn signal and wiper that you would find. on a lot of BMW models back then, which is crazy to me, but BMW provided the engine and these things aren't cheap to make, so Mclaren must have asked BMW for help with the wipers and turn signals, also next we move on to the steering wheel which is quite small, you can see the center says f1 v12 and the steering wheel has some unusual controls to the right of the center, you can see the horn icon but you don't press it to sound the horn , but you reach behind the steering wheel and pull a small paddle and that's how you honk on a mclaren f1 and in case you want to know how it sounds, meanwhile, on the left side of the steering wheel, same story you can use the turn signal to flash. the high beams, but if you want to turn them on for more than just a flash, there is a paddle on the left side of the steering wheel where you can do that, press the paddle and the high beams will use the paddles on the steering wheel differently than it does.

We're used to it now as far as the indicators themselves, they're actually pretty standard. On the left, you have the fuel temperature and the water temperature. In the middle it has the tachometer that goes up to 8 and says f1 and on the top right. you have the speedometer that goes up to 260 miles per hour, you don't see many 260 mile per hour speedometers, especially in vehicles that in theory could get pretty close to that number, now below the gauges you have two screens. on the left and on the right they show information like your odometer, your tripmeter, that kind of thing now around the gauges, obviously you have a dashboard that looks like a pretty standard dashboard, except the steering wheel is in the middle and on the back bottom of the dash, you have air conditioning vents, you have two on the left and two more on the right, so you have four air conditioning vents in this car, all of which flank the driver, which is a good idea because if If you are sitting here you can have all four vents facing you at once or you can give each passenger one and still have two facing you since you are sitting right in the middle, another benefit of the middle seat now is the next one that you probably find If you're wondering how you start this thing, so we'll get to it, there's a little plate here on the right that says f1 mclaren and it shows the serial number of your exact mclaren f1.

It also has the key slot, you put the key in there and then you turn it and you're not done, you have to lift this little cover and there's a little red button, you press that button and that starts the engine, it gives it the feel of an airplane. combat every time you turn. on your mclaren f1 now, in front of that little plate that says mclaren f1 with its serial number, there is a separate plate that says world's fastest production car and explains where it set the production car record and exactly how fast it went 240.14 miles per hour and that plate is on every mclaren f1 just to remind you as you drive down the highway that you are driving the fastest car in the world as if sitting in the middle seat wasn't enough of a reminder and now next step down from there to the passenger seat.

I'm sitting, obviously you have the gear lever and underneath you have the gear shift pattern. This is a six-speed manual and the pattern is explained just below the lever itself and you also have reverse gear, which has an unusual function. there is a little lever with a red arrow pointing down so you can put reverse gear on, you have to pull up on that lever which removes the reverse lock and then you can shift into reverse so you don't accidentally shift into reverse, it's just a normal option. reverse lock, but it is a somewhat unusual operation.

Now, under the shift lever on the reverse lock, you have on the driver's right side the climate controls, you can adjust the temperature, you can adjust the fan speed, you can turn the air recirculation on or off. There are also two other buttons on that little switch panel, one of them says light which turns on the dome lights, so if you've ever wondered how to turn on the dome lights on a mclaren f1, it's that little button on the right of the light. button you have a button marked lock that automatically locks the doors the mclaren f1 has automatic locks and this is how you do it now under all the climate controls and those buttons you have another window switch obviously this controls the window on the right side of the car and then you have power mirrors and that is the power mirror control for the mclaren f1.

Who knew this car doesn't have floor mats but it obviously has this very custom carpet that fits the mclaren f1 perfectly so you have the passenger foot room. The driver's footwell is fully carpeted and looks great and fits great and then we go back to the McLaren F1 and move on to the engine and specifically I want to talk about opening the engine compartment, now I mentioned that before. which you can do this by pulling the little latch on the door jamb marked with an e that opens the engine compartment, but it's actually a little more interesting than that because you have one of those latches on each side of each door jamb, like this that you can choose which side of the mclaren f1 you want to get into, you can also choose which side you want to use to open the engine bay, but once you've done that, you'll pull the little latch e, it'll get to this position and then you'll open it.

We lift it carefully and that reveals the glorious BMW V12 under the hood, as I mentioned, 620 horsepower and this is a very special engine. BMW didn't put this engine in any other road cars, it was just the mclaren F1 and was effectively developed exclusively for The mclaren f1, the bmw 850 csi, shares a somewhat similar base design, but basically everything else was custom built just for This car by BMW and is essentially a racing engine because this engine with just a few modifications is what McLaren ended up putting in the F1 GTR. racing car that won Le Mans and then BMW took this engine, modified it slightly and put it in their own racing cars that competed in Le Mans and other endurance races, so this is a pretty serious engine, effectively a racing engine in a road car.

You may be wondering how the mclaren f1 ended up with a bmw engine, apparently the engineers, mclaren designers wanted honda to make the engine when they developed the f-1, they were comparing cars like the lamborghini countach and the ferrari testarossa and then apparently one of the designers of the car drove the acura nsx, that car made a big impression on the mclaren team because it was very balanced and composed and a lot of fun to drive without being overpowered and crazy like many other exotic vehicles at the time, so the mclaren team He approached Honda and said, "Please build us an engine to put in our supercar, and Honda didn't want to do it, so after a couple of attempts to convince Honda McLaren, he finally went to BMW, who did build the engine Now, next A couple more interesting elements in the engine compartment.

I want to start with possibly the most unusual one, which would be the rear windows I already showed you before. The rear windows are split in two but something I didn't realize is that the engine compartment cover has its It has two rear windows which means the mclaren f1 has four rear windows, there are two in the rear from the passenger compartment and then there are two more on the engine cover, so there are four rear windows in this car that match the four for the climate control. vents other cool stuff, you can see it says bmw m power right there on the engine, printed right next to mclaren, reminding everyone that it was a bmw powertrain in this vehicle and you can also see how the roof air intake sucks in air and brings the air into the engine, you can see how that works with the engine cover raised, you can also see that the engine cover is held in place with a single hydraulic stroke, the truth is that this is carbon fiber, it's just not so heavy and so you don't need anything more than that single hydraulic strut in the middle.

The other interesting element back here, something I didn't really notice is the fact that this car has two engine covers. You see the one that is currently open, but there is also a second one, this one here now, the smaller one can only be opened once the larger one has been opened, the larger one keeps the smaller one in place and the smaller one just covers the exhaust and this part of the car gets very, very hot. and so there was some fear that the heat would damage the carbon fiber at the time, this was the first all carbon fiber vehicle, so mclaren was wondering how we kept the heat separate from the carbon fiber.

They didn't know what to use as a heat shield they decided on gold, that's right, this material here is not just something that looks like gold, it is real gold designed to keep heat inside the engine compartment and away from the body of the car, damaging the rest and, therefore, each and every one of them. mclaren f1 has 0.8 ounces of gold under the hood that acts as a heat shield, which is pretty impressive and obviously wildly interesting by the way, another thing to keep in mind while I'm here looking at the engine, obviously the car's speed record The McLaren F1's production run has been surpassed by several other vehicles, the Bugatti, the Koenigsegg, etc., etc., but it's worth noting that every car that has broken the speed record since this car has had forced induction.

This was the last naturally aspirated car to hold the speed record for a car.of production. I felt it was worth mentioning and next I want to move on to the exterior of the car, where there are quite a few interesting details and features to mention. I want to start with the mirrors, the best sports car ever made. The world's fastest production car borrows its mirrors. of the volkswagen corrado which was a small sporty volkswagen hatchback that was sold in the US from 1990 to 1994. It's amazing that this amazing special car has the same mirrors as a small volkswagen that many people have forgotten about, it's pretty simple.

On the other hand, if you ever break a mirror on your McLaren F1, just search the junkyards for the Volkswagen Corrado. It's also simple that the lighting on this car isn't particularly unusual or crazy, like many modern supercars that have crazy lights. See, the front lights are just lights and in the back, it's even simpler, you have a brake light and a turn signal, there really isn't much to it, the wheels are pretty simple too, just regular old 17 inch tires with five spokes, no crazy design, nothing particularly strange about them, although they are center locking wheels, which was a bit unusual even with exotic cars in the mclaren f1 days, but is becoming more and more common on exotic cars and sports cars nowadays, that being said, although the wheels are not particularly special, I want to draw your attention to the mclaren f1 valve stem covers yes, it has unique valve stem covers, they say f1 on them.

I wonder what a set of these would cost on eBay today, probably as a big other interesting element on this car are the side windows that you can see. It has a large side window but it's split into two parts, kind of like the Subaru SVX and only the bottom part slides down. The top is fixed. Jay told me that the reason they broke it into two pieces is to add strength by making it into two. pieces, this little line across it makes it a little bit stronger, so when you drive it at 240 miles an hour it doesn't break, which was a problem, I guess, with a giant glass panel on the side of the car and the next.

Up we move to the passenger side or in this cart, I guess just the right side where we have the other luggage compartment again, you pull the little L and the luggage compartment on this side opens once again surprisingly large. Now I told you that this side was more interesting than the other and there are two reasons for that, one is because this is the place. where you add motor oil you can see you can remove this cap and you can add motor oil right here and there is a little warning label that says check the oil level immediately after running the engine so every time you drive this automobile, mclaren is designed for you to review. the oil, which is not a common procedure in many cars, but it is not like that in many cars now.

The other reason it's a little more interesting on this side is because this side contains the case and the case contains the owner's manual, yes. that's right, this is a specific case of mclaren f1, it says f1, you open it up and we're going to go over a couple of quirks and features of the mclaren f1 owner's manual. Here is the first page of the owner's manual, the introduction and Obviously I invite you to pause and read it for yourself. My two favorite lines are the first paragraph where it says that the McLaren F1 applies solutions to all the inherent shortcomings of mid-engined sports cars, but the best line is the last one where it says that as a McLaren F1 owner, you will receive the same attention. which helped make nikki lauda, ​​elaine prost and ayrton senna multiple f1 world champions, that's great to see in the future.

You can see the owner's manual is pretty simple, but it's full of these great manuals. I drew representations of things I love and I'll turn some pages so you can see them while I do this. It's worth noting that the F1 also came with its own special wristwatch, which Jay told me he still has. This is the best watch for people who know the best part of the F1 owner's manual, where it explains the best procedure for exiting the car, at least according to this crash dummy, and that's a quick tour of the owner's manual two.

Other interesting and noteworthy items in the mclaren f1 case are the fact that it also includes a special flashlight in case you need to light your way in the dark and then there is a separate book which would be the service and maintenance log book that It has its own interesting quirks to me, this is even cooler than the owner's manual because it starts with several pages explaining the car's original specifications handwritten, presumably at the McLaren factory 20 years ago, mentions the luggage set that came with these cars. the red stripe on the side that this car has and runs through the original position of the pedals, seat and steering wheel as ordered by the first owner, although the most interesting part is probably the signature of Gordon Murray, who practically drove the car from start to finish, with a specific vision of what he wanted from the ultimate sports car.

Another interesting element on the outside of the car is the fuel filler, it is on the driver's side or just on the left side and you can see that it says pb, it is the chemical. lead symbol and then through it so that there is no lead or no lead. To open the fuel tank you have to use a key that is separate from the key you use in the car ignition, there is a special key and speaking of the key. If you are like me, you have probably always wondered what the ignition key on a mclaren f1 looks like and here it is this is the key for the mclaren f1.

There are only 64 lucky people here with one of these and a few other race cars. and prototypes and then there were some special versions that took it to 106, but there are not many of these keys available yet, so those are the quirks and features of the mclaren f1. Now I mentioned I was taking this car out. on the road, but I didn't say that I was going to drive it, but rather that the owner of the car will drive it. That would be Jay Leno, who will take me for a ride here in the Los Angeles area and tell us what it's like. drive the mclaren f1 well, the good thing about it is that it is still a passenger car, it is not a difficult drive, yes, you know, a sports car, so you tolerate how often you drive it, maybe once a month or six weeks, something like that, yeah.

Are you nervous when you drive it? You can't throw it in the way you wouldn't be out or something. friend like a sienna if you go to honda odyssey it won't see you and that will be like that, you know it well, this car is like riding a motorcycle. I never take it when I have to be somewhere, yeah, yeah, because I'm not. I'm going to take my chances, yeah, this car leaves on a Sunday morning, you know, yeah, early, on a Sunday morning, Sunday afternoons, right, I'm not in this car on a Saturday night, passing through Hollywood, Right, I don't take it to clubs?

Valet, you don't go to restaurants, yeah, that kind of thing, so how long have you had it? 20 years, 20 years, yes, maybe a little more than 20. Are you surprised that values ​​have gotten to where they are and that this car has become like this? the best car according to everyone's opinion. Yes, I'm the trick to making money with cars. If you easily know cars and enjoy it as a hobby and buy what you like, chances are good that other people will like it too, but this car. you bought it without realizing what it would become but you liked it I liked it you thought it was cool you thought it was special yeah I mean I liked it for what it was I never thought it would go down so much but I never thought it would become what it has become converted, do you agree that people say it's the best car ever made?

All of that, do you agree with it all? Well, I think it's the best sports car of the 20th century. Yes, this came right at the end of the 20th century. century, yeah, uh, it's the last true analog high-performance sports car, there's nothing on this car, there's no anti-lock, right, there's nothing right, so you'll never see anything like it again and this was Gordon's idea Murray. the perfect car would have to be extremely light and nothing was compromised, even down to this, down to the smallest washing machine, they would shave them so they knew a millimeter of whatever it was, yeah, yeah, you know, that's what makes it , because unlike a car that's like designed by a committee where people have a million different people they have to approve a million different things right exactly exactly is it weird to sit in the middle not to sit in the middle is really the position ideal because the pad is far enough back so you have a perfect vision and allows you to place the car in the middle of the road.

I have a Dodge Viper and it looks huge. I'm sitting there. Am I on the center line? I can't do it right. Warming up now you see what I mean, she will let go of anything wow, there are no aids, there is no traction control anymore, that was fourth gear on the tires and you're just us, it's not a car to give to your son 16 years old. Is it strange having people on either side of you? It's weird because you're behind me, so it still feels pretty normal. I can not see you. The acceleration is obviously explosive and that was crazy.

Yes, it's actually very good, but this weighs. Same as the miata when you have 627 horsepower. The interesting thing about pure design is that it's pure, it doesn't necessarily surprise anyone, but it's relaxing and it lasts a long time, yeah, you know, you look at a lot of how pure you look. a lot of designs from the 60s and 50s, look at that and then wow that looks ridiculous right right, are they keeping up with other F1 owners? Do you have a small fraternity of the few that exist? It's an interesting question, you know? They get so expensive you can't be a car guy, you have to be something else first, yeah I don't like cars, is it the most exciting of your cars, the one you really want to get kicked in?

Go and enter well. you know the p1 is really good yeah i mean i'm in awe of the p1 because of its technology and this is another mistake the steering is super tight it's really connected the steering is great i mean do you see what it does ? I mean, and you see, I'm not speeding up, I'm just speeding it up. Do you feel like the coolest guy in the world when you pull this out? I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. Yeah, you know, the fun stuff. The thing about this car is that it will always fascinate you because I'm not good enough to force it to do what it's capable of, yes I'm sure you know that, so I'll never really master it, but every time I take it out I learn something and I enjoy it .

It's so linear, you know, a lot of cars use a big engine, uh ls7, I mean, there are a lot of them that don't have this turban quality. Do you take people from Verizon or do you often, yes, a lot of times people might want to do that? go for a walk because I'm sure this is the right thing to do, but people wanted this. I mean, I enjoy sharing my cars with people. Know? Sometimes you feel very sorry on the Internet. Are you sure I don't know? I was a child. I would have loved to be taken on something like this.

I mean, my favorite story has just begun. Tonight I received a letter from a 12 year old boy. Dear Miss Leno, can you help me? I told my friends. That you and my uncle go for rides in his countach on the weekends. Could you take me to school one morning so my friends think you're my uncle? Okay, right away, the kid is a liar, but I was. I found this story very funny. I called this house, talked to his parents and said yes, I'll do it, so I go out to his house and pick him up, you know, and we wait until the kids get off on the school bus and we stop, well, you know. the boy is going to buy a fruit judge, yes, he gets enough money every time he achieves it or makes it big, whatever his field, how the maintenance has been, you work on it in the workshop, it is not cheap, it is not a camry, no, no, but you, you.

The guys are comfortable doing it and it's not uh we do the oil change for regular maintenance. Yeah, have you had McLaren fly to do things to it? Yeah, there's a guy named Penny. He is fantastic. I've been one of my third parties and you see Hitler. I mean it's an amazing car and that's the mclaren f1, the fastest production car in the world for a decade, a nearly 20 million dollar sports car, an engineering marvel and maybe the best car ever made. It's been amazing to have the opportunity to come here and Look This Up Close and I hope you enjoyed a deep dive into a car that you just don't get to see that often and now, with the help of Jay Leno, who actually drove the car, It's time to give it F1.

A score from Doug starting with the weekend categories and the design of the F1 is a beautiful car, although it is more specifically designed than just beautiful like others and gets an 8 out of 10. Acceleration is 0-60 in 3, 4 seconds and it gets a 9. out of 10. the handling is perfectly balanced and precise and it gets a 10 out of 10. The fun factor is obviously the highest you can imagine, it gets a 10 out of 10. Finally, the cool factor is in the top, no There is nothing cooler than this and it gets a 10 out of 10 for aTotal weekend score of 47 out of 50.

Next up are the daily categories and features it has more than you would expect given what it is, but it's not ultra high. technology like a modern car and gets a 2 out of 10. The comfort is surprisingly reasonable considering how fast and exciting it is and gets a 3 out of 10. The quality is tremendously high and every possible element seems to be obsessed with it as this category also Consider reliability and ownership costs, although I'll take it down a notch to get a 9 out of 10. Practicality is surprisingly high, not only does it seat three people, but it also has more cargo space than you'd expect and scores a 3 out of 10.

Finally, pricing 20 million is a lot to say the least, but you only get one chance to test drive the

greatest

car ever made and it gets a 10 out of 10 for a total daily score of 27 out of 50. And to add it up, I dig it. The score is 7,400, making it Doug's new scoring champion, beating out all of these other awesome cars. Koenigsegg Bugatti Pagani 918 Spider Ferrari F40 Mclaren. The goal of F1 is to create the ultimate road car. I think they nailed it at this point. I'm on one of my thirds. and you see it will start, I just can't believe you drive it, it would scare the hell out of me given the value, yeah that's scary, yeah that's scary, even if you're the best driver in the world you know that.

Maybe what you don't want to do is be like a YouTube journalist in heavy traffic in Los Angeles at five o'clock, that's the worst thing you can do with a car like this because something terrible will happen.