McLaren F1 sells for $20.5 million, the most costly automobile auctioned this yr

A McLaren F1 was auctioned at Pebble Beach on Friday evening for $20.5 million, displaying the continued energy of the traditional automobile market.

Gooding & Co. auctioned off the uncommon McLaren F1 to a packed and excited crowd, blowing previous its estimate of at the least $15 million. The F1, probably the most prized collector automobiles for its rarity and place in auto historical past, turned the most costly automobile auctioned this yr and the most costly McLaren F1 ever offered.

The sale supplied proof that after a pause in auctions of hyper-priced automobiles through the coronavirus pandemic, gross sales of seven-figure and eight-figure automobiles stay particularly robust.

“It seems that the same enthusiasm in the lower price brackets exists in the highest as well,” mentioned Hagerty, the collector automobile insurance coverage firm.

Sales to this point at Monterey Car Week in California — which incorporates a number of auctions, exhibits and awards, and consists of the Concours d’Elegance — are up 34% in contrast with the identical interval in 2019, topping $210 million, in response to Hagerty.

The McLaren F1 was the undisputed star of the week, and collectors and public sale homes had been watching its sale worth intently as a barometer for the market. The F1 is taken into account one of many first trendy tremendous automobiles and is credited with reviving the McLaren racing and automobile model. McLaren solely made about 100 F1s, so that they hardly ever come up for public sale and collectors world wide wait anxiously for his or her sale.

With a hulking 6-liter V-12 cranking out over 600 horsepower, it had a high pace of 240 mph and was described as “the first Formula 1 car for the road.”

The sticker worth for McLaren F1s once they had been launched within the mid-Nineties was sometimes between $800,000 and $1 million. While many scoffed on the excessive worth on the time, the hovering worth of the F1 makes it one of many best-performing automobiles of all time in the case of worth appreciation. Jay Leno as soon as known as his F1 “the best investment I ever made.”

The F1 auctioned by Gooding on Friday was particularly prized, because it had solely 241 miles on it, making it a “time capsule” automobile. It was additionally completed in a uncommon “Creighton Brown.” A 1994 McLaren — with particular LM racing specs — offered at RM Sotheby’s for $19.8 million in 2019.

It’s unclear who made the successful bid.