Classified of the week: a three-seat F1 car

Have a handful of mates you want to scare the bejesus out of? Then we have the car for you. Well, technically ‘cars’, as we’ve just found a classified for not one, but two Arrows AX3 three-seat F1 cars.

You'd better believe it, buddy. See, everyone knows that F1 cars are the pinnacle of four-wheeled performance, but there’s one problem; only having one seat, they’re frightfully selfish things. Not the Arrows AX3. When released in 2001 it was the only three-seater Formula One car in the world and also the most practical Formula One car in the world.

They were a vision of Arrows team owner, Tom Walkinshaw and custom built out of modified 2000 Arrows F1 chassis’ driven by Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa and Max Verstappen Snr, Jos ‘The Boss’ Verstappen.

Well, they weigh as much as a casserole dish and are powered by 3.5-litre V10 Hart engines that rev to an ear-piercing 15,000 rpm and produce 720 bhp. Connected to six-speed sequential gearboxes, they’re good for a top speed of 205mph and neck-snapping corner speeds.

Your two victims – we mean passengers – sit just behind and to each side of the driver. The positioning is designed to give them the best visibility possible and the ability to feel all the speed and forces of a flat-out F1 car without the need to do the complicated bit of juggling the steering, braking and accelerating. However, they’ll probably be too busy keeping their stomachs in check to worry about that anyway.

We’re told both cars (that have resided in New Zealand as part of an F1 driver experience) are in fantastic condition and have been fastidiously maintained. They’ve both done less than 180 miles since their last engine rebuild and the sale comes with a spares package that includes another zero mile V10 engine (which can be run with custom made exhaust silencers reducing the noise level to 92 DB), full starting equipment, tyre warmers and a set of specialist spanners to take them apart.

£525,000 for both. Considering the only other three-seat car with similarly outrageous performance – the McLaren F1 – is currently trading at the same price as a medium-sized Caribbean island, this looks like a billy bargain to us.

Drop Heritage F1 a line and prepare for a serious summer of track days. And a set of very scared friends.