Rowan Atkinson came away with only minor injuries after crashing his beloved F1. The damage to his car will hurt him much more than the pain from any cuts and bruises.
In the mid 90s I was a cub reporter living in London. During that time I could either get the bus to work or go by tube. The bus was invariably slower but was always my preferred mode of transport.
Why? Because the No.6 bus went down Park Lane, site of the McLaren showroom.
In the window was a car that took up much of the small showroom opposite Hyde Park. That car was a McLaren F1.
It was a work of art and an engineering masterpiece. It looked like a million dollars, which was apt as that’s exactly what it cost. The driver sat in the middle of the car, like he would in a Formula 1 track car, but the F1 had seats for two passengers, just behind each of the driver’s shoulders, making it a practical runaround (sort of).
And it went very, very quickly. On 31 March 1998, it set the record for the fastest road car in the world, reaching 231 mph (372 km/h) with its rev limiter on, and 240 mph (386.24 km/h) with the rev limiter removed.
It took until 2005 for the Koenigsegg CCR and the Bugati Veyron to go faster, but to this day, it’s the fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world as any road car to go faster has used forced induction to reach their top speeds.
Jay Leno bought one, Beatle George Harrison bought one. Ralph Lauren bought two.
Rowan Atkinson bought one (chassis number 061) and has now crashed his twice – most recently in Cambridgeshire on Thursday night when he lost control, careered across the carriageway into a tree and a roadsign before the car burst into flames.
The 56-year-old comic actor escaped with just a broken shoulder and a dent in his pride. The car, understandably, was not so lucky.
Beast
It’s not surprising that the Mr Bean star lost control. Because of all that power and the unusual seating position people buying McLaren F1s would be taken out onto a track and taught how to drive it, or at least how to work with an automotive beast that was built to go quickly and that no man was actually expected to tame.
McLaren stopped making the F1 in 1998. They’d produced just 106 of them, 64 standard ones (if you can ever call a supercar like an F1 ‘standard’) with the rest prototypes, special editions and supertuned models.
An an average of three and a half months would be spent on each one – designer Gordon Murray was insistent that no compromises would be made, and if that meant that it was to be the most expensive driving machine out there, so be it.
The resultant monster came with manual transmission, an engine custom built by BMW and lightweight carbon fibre panelling. Push it up to the 7500rpm mark and you were dealing with more than 600bhp and there was enough torque to make your eyes sweat as they struggled to stay in their sockets.
As a result it was, as Autocar magazine put it, “the finest driving machine yet built for the public road. The F1 will be remembered as one of the great events in the history of the car”.
Which is why they’re still special and which is which is why I believe that Rowan Atkinson will do everything in his power to avoid having his pride and joy written off.
At first glance Rowan’s F1 looks like it might need some minor repairs
There are currently eight authorised service centres around the world for the surviving McLaren F1s. If a car is badly damaged – clearly the case with Atkinson’s car – a trained engineer will collect the car and bring it back to McLaren HQ where it will be nursed back into health.
I suspect car number 061 is currently in triage being carefully assessed right now and that its battered owner has made more than one phone call to check on its progress already.
He can buy another F1, if he can find one for sale, but I don’t think he will. Like children, McClaren F1s are not interchangable. Atkinson will feel responsible for what happened to 061 and will feel honour bound to help with its long rehabilitation. Besides, to get a replacement he’ll have to shell out a lot more than he did originally. Rather than lose value like most other cars, second-hand ones can sell for double what was originally paid for them.
Incidentially the one from the showroom (chassis number 065) that I coveted for many years went up for sale on 29 October 2008. It had just 484 kilometres on the clock and was sold at an RM Automobiles of London auction for £2,530,000.
I’ll never get to drive one – looking at 065 through the Park Lane showroom window is as near as I’ll ever get. As for Rowan Atkinson, he can console himself that he’s currently Top Gear‘s fastest ever driver in a reasonably priced car. And as he nurses his bruises, he can dream about the happy day when he gets to scare himself shitless in his rebuilt McLaren F1 once more.
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