Legends: The McLaren F1 — The Boy Car Blog

The McLaren F1, a car so fast that it had a speed record over 20 miles per hour faster than the previous one. The F1 is probably the most revolutionary car of all time. There was just something about this car that no other car could compare to. This is the story of the legendary Mclaren F1.

I would say the most advanced thing about the F1 has to be its engine. Originally it was designed to go in the new 1991 BMW 850i, but that project was an overall failure. With so many problems very few were made. There were so many many hadn’t even been built yet because they scraped the project. So BMW had all these extra V12 engines but nowhere to put them at the time. But when Gordon Murray of McLaren was designing their first road car ever he had one problem, what engine to use. So he picked up every single one of the leftover BMW engines and even asked them to make more. He and the McLaren team fixed every one of the problems with those engines. This gave the legendary engine over 620 horsepower and 520-pound feet of torque. To this day, the insane sounding engine in the F1 is still one of the most powerful naturally aspirated engines ever.

When the Mclaren F1 came out it had one of the best looking engine bays ever with NASA inspired gold tape that reflected heat. There was just something about this engine bay that no other car could compare to.

The unique engine bay was also fitted into another very revolutionary part of the car. The 620 horsepower naturally aspirated V12 was fitted to the first-ever Carbon Fibre Monocoque chassis. It was made with the exact same process as F1 cars by putting carbon fibre in heat chambers to stiffen up and then all of the pieces would be glued together to make an incredible chassis which only weighed 220 pounds! A two-person team could easily lift it, that’s crazy!

The other insane thing about this car was it was actually the fastest car in the world for over 14 years. As Jerimiah from Donut Media said “you could have gone to preschool in 1992 and when you graduate High School the Mclaren F1 would still be the fastest car in the world” the record was also 24 miles per hour more than the previous record set by the Jaguar XJ220, another very legendary Gordan Murray designed car.

When the Guinness World Records officially named it the fastest road-legal car in the world for going 240 miles per hour (Average over 2 runs). The Mclaren Team was so happy that their first road legal car ever was the fastest car in the world. This was a huge achievement for Mclaren.

But, I would say the coolest thing about the F1 was the center seat positing. This meant that the driver would be in the center of the car giving it perfect weight balance. It would also give really good visibility of the road compared to the other hypercars at the time. Every single control feature was placed in a convenient spot and the pedals were right in front of the driver for a perfect driving position.

The McLaren F1 is possibly the coolest and most legendary (as I say for every car in this series) car ever. The complexity of this car just amazes me. And somehow it is still the 7th fastest car in the world and it is still somehow the most powerful naturally aspirated car. Gordon Murray, you made one insane car.

Cover Credit: Mclaren Auto