INNOVATIVE DESIGN AND ENGINEERING SKILLS DRIVEN BY THE BEAUTY AND EFFICIENCY OF FORMULA ONE COMPONENTRY
Everyone involved in creating the McLaren F1, from the technical staff who conceived it, through the design engineers who drew it, to the pattern makers, fabricators, machinists, composites specialists…every crafts and tradesman who physically make it – is an artist in his own right.
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A truly classic car – and throughout history there are few indeed – is rare, exclusive, innovative, trend-setting, exciting, thrilling to drive and scintillating in performance.
Individually, in their componentry, they are also exquisitely well made.
How many enthusiastic collectors throughout the motoring world cherish like precious icons perhaps a supercharger volute from the 1920s, a hollow axle from the 1930s, a multi-cylinder engine from the 1960s? Each artefact embodies care, craft, superb design, superlative skill. The kind of automotive objet d’art one might love to place upon the desk, occasionally to be caressed, handled, displayed and demonstrated...
The McLaren F1 project has been one of enthusiastic heart and soul – frontier design and engineering driven by the beauty and efficiency of Formula One componentry.
F1 materials and finishes have all been chosen for absolute performance, but the most elegant of functional concepts has a flair and beauty entirely of its own.
Every part of the McLaren F1 – whether it be cast in magnesium, machined from solid aluminium or fabricated in titanium or Inconel – perhaps moulded and cured in the most advanced carbon composite – or indeed, like the gearlever knob and handbrake handle, traditionally turned and carved from African blackwood – exemplifies skill and care and exquisite craft.
Where an Old Master painting may be the work of one great artist labouring alone, a truly classic car combines the work of many...
And the McLaren F1 now joins that rarefied, exclusive, brief list of Truly Classic Cars...
An abiding work of many artists’ hands – a thing of beauty – a highly usable joy forever.
