For sale: a $20m+ road-legal, V12 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail

In today’s edition of Fantasy Lottery Win Car Purchase comes this entirely delectable McLaren F1 GTR Longtail. It is a version of Gordon Murray’s criminally overlooked, unheard-of masterstroke. Indeed, you’ve probably never even heard of a McLaren F1 GTR Longtail until right this second.

This particular car – number 27R – was ordered new back in 1997 by a banker called David Morrison who ran the Parabolica race team. Side note: Morrison already had a couple of McLarens in his collection.

It recorded a win on its competitive debut at Silverstone in April 1997 in the British GT Championship – driven by Gary Ayles and Chris Goodwin (later a McLaren test driver) – and raced at Le Mans. Side note: the Le Mans driver lineup included the ‘Drift King’ Keiichi Tsuchiya.

A couple of sixth-place finishes would be the highlights of 27R’s 1997 season, though Goodwin apparently described it as one of the best cars he’d ever driven.

It was handed over to Dean Lanzante in 2011 for a full restoration that cost £110,000, and later in 2017, went back to Lanzante to be converted into a road car at a cost of £200k. Lanzante has an affinity with the McLaren F1, but you’ve probably never even heard of it.

Amusingly, we’re told “particular focus was paid to the steering, which needed to navigate England’s myriad mini-roundabouts, and the damping, which needed to handle England’s notoriously poor road surfaces”.

Elsewhere, it was fitted with a handbrake from the ‘regular’ F1 (apparently really very hard) and a left-hand passenger seat. The ride height was also raised, and Lanzante fitted smaller wheels and a quieter exhaust baffle.

Same engine as it had when it raced, of course, BMW’s S70 V12. In the Longtail, displacement came down to 6.0-litres, but it still punched out an entirely respectable 604bhp.

It’s being offered up for sale by Girardo & Co, with a valuation that exceeds $20m. We did say Fantasy Lottery Win Car Purchase, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to stare.