Top Gear-Sponsored McLaren F1 GTR Longtail For Sale

With a total of only 10 examples built, just seeing a McLaren F1 GTR Longtail should be enough to make your day.

The F1 GTR is the ultimate development of the iconic McLaren supercar. As the British manufacturer states, the F1 was never designed to go racing – which is odd, since all of its details have deep roots extracted from motorsport.

Nonetheless, seeking circuit glory or not, the converted road-going F1s that finished – and won – the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1995, were proof that McLaren needed to continue racing.

But in 1997, FIA took hold of the BPR Global GT Series – where McLaren competed with its “regular” F1 GTR – and transformed it in the FIA GT Championship. The regulations changed and the car manufacturers had to build a minimum number of production cars in order to homologate the racing version. Of course, many took advantage of this and built pure racing cars, thus creating monsters like the CLK-GTR and the Porsche GT1.

McLaren couldn’t stay far back and in the same year, they came up with the F1 GTR Longtail. In order to homologate it, McLaren built 3 road legal variants of the Longtail, making it the rarest model they’ve ever created. Of course, any GTR Longtail can be legally converted to road use, but it’s not the same thing. (We think the racing version is cooler, since it holds some memorable stories)

Anyway, this superb example showcased in the photos is the very last F1 GTR model ever created and if that’s not special enough, then you may want to know it was sponsored by Top Gear. The old Top Gear – before the Clarksonian era.

The reason we presented the car – besides its obvious awesomeness – is that McLaren themselves are brokering the deal between the seller and buyer, according to Top Gear. So, if you ever wanted a pure-bred racing car, now’s your chance. The price hasn’t been disclosed yet, but in 2012, Bonhams sold it to whoever owns it now for $13 million. But trust us, it’s totally worth it, because it sports the official Gulf livery. All cars with the official Gulf livery are cool.

Just so you know, the GTR Longtail is 135 Kg lighter than a regular GTR, which means its kerb weight is just 915 Kg. That’s astonishing considering that it looks like a big lump. The V12 naturally aspirated 6.0-litre BMW M-sourced engines outputs 600-horses which makes for an awesome power-to-weight-ratio.