Three-peat: the £1.3m Lanzante 95-59 wants to be a usable three-seater supercar

“People have asked for this. They’ve specifically asked for non-hybrid cars, cars with luggage space and decent touring range, the size of the car has been important, even reasonable maintenance costs. They want a car they can use. And I’m confident that even when you have a lot of keys to a lot of cars, nine times out of 10, you’ll pick this,” says Dean Lanzante with a grin, talking about his new 95-59 supercar. 

It sounds like he’s talking about a far more prosaic vehicle than an 850bhp, 1,200kg twin passenger automotive shiv with a centrally seated driver, itself a thorough reworking of the already exceptional McLaren 750S. But in the context of Lanzante’s usual output, this is basically a Touring spec supercar. It’s that central driving position that gives it the magic though, brings the McLaren F1 vibes. And Lanzante has more than a passing connection with that car, no matter how much Dean himself insists that the 95-59 isn’t the ‘new’ version of anything. 

Lanzante Motorsport won 1995’s Le Mans running a McLaren F1 with the number 59, during which Dean Lanzante was a 21 year old fuel man on his dad Paul’s team. Hence the new car’s 95-59 designation.

Photography: Jonny Fleetwood

The company went on to take care of road-going McLaren F1s for servicing and care, before Paul and Dean separated the business, with Dean producing a slew of road converted racing cars and specials – like the legalised Pagani Zonda R and McLaren P1 GTR. The P1 HDK (high downforce kit). That Porsche 930 TAG Turbo with the F1 engine? Lanzante. Mad Mike Whiddett’s 1,000bhp P1 GTR drift car? Lanzante. The P1 Spider? Lanzante.

The guys are even in the process of working out how to road legalise Red Bull’s RB17 car. Which is more complicated than bolting on numberplates. But you get the point – Lanzante is the go-to place when you want to radically alter something worth more than your entire existence.

As you might expect, the 95-59 isn’t some chicken wire and hacksaw job. The steering column and pedal box are obviously spine aligned in the middle, but that necessitates the HVAC system to be repositioned to one side. The electronics and other gubbins need to be moved, and the steering rack needs to be changed. Pulling the two passengers back into the carbon tub requires a new fuel tank, and yet it needs to be big enough to offer convenience. At 70+ litres, it’ll be good for decent range, even if you’re using the power.

But the attention to detail is all present and correct... the doors open out and wide enough that you won’t be ducking too hard to get into the slim driving chair. There are ridges in the floor to brace your feet on when getting in and out, even the fuse box has been placed under the right hand passenger seat so that a tech doesn’t need to pull half a car apart to check something simple.

The proportions of a McLaren 750S still ghost the edges, but designer Paul Howse – himself heavily involved in the design of the McLaren P1 and original 720S – has pulled the bodywork into the carbon tub even tighter, shortening the car and giving it a more energetic profile... almost as if the carbon cell in the middle floats within a space inside the bodywork.

There’s a wide mouth and scowling face – a single line that runs from the front bumper along a big kick past the front wheelarch and back to the rear bumper. It’s fierce but resolved, familiar and yet not. There’s detail everywhere – bespoke radiators allow for different volumes, the central seating position leading a view from the rear that all seems to fall from the front windscreen in a spine that terminates in the oval of the Inconel exhaust.

The 4.0-litre twin turbo V8 that feeds that system features a relatively mild tune to 850bhp, good for reliability, plenty for a car that should weigh less than the donor. It’s got the mythology of the three-seat supercar – the added special feeling – but without the faff. And that’s the point, Lanzante sees the 95-59 as a car that you can park outside a hotel or at an airport and not worry, something that delivers a particular driving experience without the headaches that come with something more specific and extreme. Something Dean Lanzante’s clients have actually asked for.

Which means the 95-59 hasn’t been born of ego or expectation, but customer research; the kinds of people Dean deals with already own more extreme road cars, and likely more extreme three seaters. Which means that in context, the 95-59 is actually more of a go-to, as mad as that sounds for a car that weighs in at roughly £1.3 million.

There will only be 59 examples, also making it one of the rarest McLaren derivatives. It’s a strange day when something like this starts to sound sensible as a daily, but with the quality on display and the people behind it, don’t bet against Lanzante selling every single one.