LOOKIE WHAT I SAW TODAY!!!

^^^^^^
Yea, I agree! Man, I thought I was an F1 freak (spending $1000 on a freaking book is pretty sick...1/5th scale R/C car, pics, etc are pretty normal for a crazy car guy but the book is not right), but YOU...there are NO WORDS!

Which chassis is in Austin, TX? I hear there is one here...have never seen it, but would give my left one for a photo op w/ the car!

James

 

Left one for just a photo op, I say a ride, a drive and a track week.

But really, which one is in Austin, never heard of one there.

 

Very, very cool. I have yet to see one in person.

 

I have no idea if it is even true. I heard there was one in Austin recently. Could be that one is in Houston and the owner come to Austin or has a house in Austin and has brought it here once or twice. Just wondering if anyone has any idea about it and if it is really true or just a myth.

Thanks guys,
James

 

No worries, still Houston is pretty damn close for an F1 to be living without us knowing.

 

Wow. Didn't even notice until I saw the Spanish tile roof in the background. Thank God I don't have an F1, Peleton would know my every move

 

There's that "S" word I was referring to.

I don't know of any in Austin or the surrounding area at the moment. Perhaps some owner just breathed a sigh of relief?

There was an orange metallic F1 road car that resided in Houston for a short time in ~2006 before moving on to a new owner in Atlanta and then perhaps most recently ending up in Connecticut after being sold yet again. It had come from Arizona prior to that and most would be quite familiar with that car as it had a significant amount of exposure while in the hands of it's Scottsdale owner.

All in, we have roughly two dozen here in the USA at any given time.

>8^)
ER

 

LOL you are good!

Yes, the LM racing the F1 was Frank Selldorff and a friend of his. The silver F1 was Herb Chambers - he had it parked at Chambers Dodge while I was buying a Viper some years back. Nice car, but the F1 LM really *really* stood out. Beautiful car.

 

Nice one Remix, seeing an F1 on the road could be a once in a lifetime thing.
Peloton, how many F1's were produced. Just the road version's, not including all the racing ones, GTR, etc.

haha

 

I recall something like 106 including all the race cars. I think it mid 70's for street cars. I am sure the absolute real numbers will hit this thread soon enough. There is a guy in England that has an ex-racecar that is used on street now... I saw a YouTube video of Tiff Niedell driving it and the guys Enzo... Very nice video.

James

 

I thought that Ralph Lauren had an orange F1 LM. Is that not the same car??

 

There were 64 production F1 road cars produced starting at the very end of 1993 and running through May of 1998. There were also 5 prototypes of the road car built in 1992 and 1993. The first two prototypes no longer exist and at least two production road cars have been destroyed/damaged beyond repair, possibly others.

Adding all the F1 variants together including prototypes will bring you to the 106 figure, and they also built one additional spare chassis that isn't really counted. High level the 106 includes 69 road cars, 28 GTRs, 6 LMs and 3 GTs.

>8^)
ER

 

Yes, Ralph is now the owner of LM3. He purchased the car from Mr Selldorff in December 2004 for a price reportedly in the neighborhood of $4M USD.

It remains the only LM ever to change hands from its original owner, being previously owned by David Morrison in the UK before Selldorff picked it up around the beginning of 2002.

>8^)
ER

 

What's the actual curb weight of a standard F1? In a Supercars book of mine they list it as 2244 pounds (with a sidebar written by Jay Leno confirming it "weighs less than a Miata"), yet IIRC, when R&T tested one in late 90s it was somewhere in the 2800 lbs neighborhood.

 

Part of your question is easy to answer, the other part is not.

The 2,840 lb figure that Road & Track published in December 1997 was for an "Ameritech F1". I can hear you saying "a what?" and it's a bit of a long story, but essentially in order to get the first 7 F1s in the country prior to the introduction of the DOTs 'Show or Display' exemption, a company in Massachusetts made several significant changes to the cars that were all totally reversable in order to federalize the cars for importation. The two passenger seats were covered with large boxes, probably built from a dense fiberboard like the type used for speaker boxes. They also added a pair of bumperettes to the nose of the car in order to raise the bumber height. Those changes and others that you can't see factored to add the additional pounds reflected in that article. Here's the only pair of photos that exist in the public domain of what the cars looked like once those changes were made.

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Thankfully all seven cars have since been restored by the owners to their original glory. In fact, some insiders claim that not all the cars were actually modified prior to delivery and perhaps the same package of photos may have been used to satisfy regulators for multiple cars. I have been brief, so if I can add some clarity for anyone on these cars, feel free to ask.

Scanning my digital library, McLaren have released a few official weight figures through various sources. The lowest dry weight I found was 1,080 kg which equates to 2,381 lbs. Another publication had the dry weight at an even 1,100 kg or 2,425 lbs. The lowest curb weight I saw was 1,138 or 2,509 lbs. Most sources list the road car's curb weight at 1,140 kg or 2,513 lbs. AutoCar Magazine's original F1 test using the road car prototype chassis XP4 noted a curb weight of 1,138 lbs with a half tank of petrol.

A later Road & Track test of another US Federalized McLaren F1 in December 2002 that did not go through the Ameritech process put the weight of that car at 2,425 lbs. This wasn't a totally standard F1 either, as it's tech-savvy owner had the McLaren factory in England modify the car with a host of electronic features he felt the car needed thus adding to that car's weight as well. I'm left to wonder if perhaps they didn't actually put the car on a scale though and instead relied on sourced info and ended up with the 1,100 kg dry weight figure? Another US publication, Roundel Magazine, testing a different Federalized US McLaren F1 quoted the weight at 2,579 lbs. I suspect that car may have been on the scales to come up with that figure, but perhaps there was some luggage on board?? Who knows...

As you can see - all these variances make it difficult to quote actual weight of the cars, but it's a safe bet that most road cars would come in relatively close to an even 2,500 lbs as they sit. As far as I can recall, even the most recent body style of the Miata was still in the 2,400 lb range, but perhaps we can give Jay a pass on his statement as it's close enough.

>8^)
ER

 

Can't believe I missed this thread. Great spot Remix.

Peleton, thanks for all the history.

 

Covering the seats in order to be U.S. road legal sounds a bit strange, especially with the heavy solution they came up with; I wonder why they didn't just rip the seats out - keep the rails mounted, leaving the owner to just pop them back in at a later date. Unless there is a minimum weight the car must have had to meet; but that seems implausible - even if it did weigh in the 2400 neighborhood- given the fact there were plenty of cars sold here that tipped the scales at less than that, and Gordon Murray was quoted lots of times saying that the car weighs in with the Golf yet delivers 5 or 6 times the power. Although I'll be the first to admit I have no clue just how heavy VW's econo model is/was.

Another question which may not have an answer: were any of the cars ever chassis dyno tested? Thinking back on that R&T article I'm positive the 1/4 trap speed didn't exceed 126 mph - that seems odd given the 12 cylinder's huge power and purported light weight. Combine that with a later article in the same mag that had Mario Andretti doing top speed runs, yet able to attain (if memory serves me right) somewhere only in the 215 to 220 area. It's not that I doubt the car's claimed performance, but rather that I think of the manufacturer's specs as maybe wishful thinking (sort of like Ferrari reporting the F50's weight at 2700 lbs).

Interesting facts about all aspects of the car, by the way. For some reason I find myself really drawn to it for the last decade and a half- just for example, it was the first chapter I went to in the aforementioned John Lamm book I own - though I don't possess 1/100th of the knowledge as yourself.

 

only f1 i ever saw was in the parking lot at the breakers for cav this year. It was parked next to an enzo and a muira. It was parked normally, just like all the other cars. That was one hell of a parking lot. strangely, i took several pics of the R8 (brand new at the time and getting star billing) but none of the f1. here are a couple of pics of the lot.
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IIRC the test of the Ameritech F1 came up with 11.8@127 which seems slow given its supposed to be a 2500lb car with 627hp. I would definetly take that test with a grain of salt. Another test ive seen had it at 11.0@131mph which seems more reasonable. The F1 has very tall gears which for acceleration is a disadvantage. I bet with alot of seat time, some tires with more grip, shorter gearing and the right conditions a low to mid 10 second pass would seem feasible

 

The two side seats have no rails. They are basically just an upholstered shape built into the monocoque, so it was easier to just cover them. Minimum weight had nothing to do with it.

 

yessiree...the parking lot at cavallino is the second best car show i've been to [guess what's first !]
saw my first and and only veyron there. btw,what a bling ridden mess that car is !!

 

You saw the white F1 with the High Downforce Kit - chassis #014. It was originally yellow and was owned by the Brunei Royal Family. It then came to the USA in early 2003 by way of England and a dealership called Taylor & Crawley which has handled a lot of McLaren F1 sales due to the fact that it's owner, David Clark, was the Marketing Sales Director for McLaren Cars when the F1 was new. He probably knew a lot of the original owners by first name and has likely maintained some of those relationships. Anyway, #014 stayed in New York till the end of 2005 when it's owner sold the car to Silicon Valley Auto Group.

SVAG tried unsuccessfully to sell the car at a market price of $1.8M or so for a period of about one year, and finally ended up auctioning it at Pebble Beach the following August through RM. The hammer price was $1.55M, plus 10% buyer's premium, so essentially the car sold for $1.705M. If SVAG didn't have any special arrangements with RM to waive the listing fee and seller's premium, they likely only ended up with about $1.37M on the deal, so considerably less than they wanted, though perhaps they still made some money?

The car was in rough shape after it's stay in Brunei and need a retrim of the interior as some of the materials were left worn or sagging from the intense heat and humidty they have over there. Additionally there were areas of the paint that had also suffered so in the end it is a good thing that the car's current owner chose to have the factory make the changes that did. I don't recall if a figure has been floated for the conversion and refit the car received, but $300,000 would probably be a fair estimate if you can imagine that. Part of that price would factor in the High Downforce Package which includes the new nose, front splitter, wheel arches, larger 18" OZ wheels, of course the rear wing and other little tweaks as well. The choices made in the interior are somewhat unique too, giving the look of an F1 LM inside, almost.

Here's someone else's photos of the car there in the parking lot at the Breakers since you didn't get one.

>8^)
ER
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Excellent Pelton, you really are a knowledgeable guy about these cars. By the way before Ayrton Senna died, he mentioned in an interview that he was going to get an Orange F1 when they came out, this was before the LM series.

 

Sarasota is a great place to spot hot cars. I used to live there and was amazed what I would see daily. In fact I lived right down the street from where that pic was taken, right off University.