Gordon Murray’s first S1 LM has sold at auction for over $20m

Something rather special happened in Las Vegas over the weekend. No, it wasn’t Barry’s stag do. And no, it wasn’t even Max Verstappen’s win and McLaren’s double disqualification in the Las Vegas GP.

It was the sale of the very first GMA S1 LM chassis at a special RM Sotheby’s auction, with the hammer falling at $20.63m. That’s almost £15.8m, and makes this the most expensive new car ever sold at auction. Well, if you don’t count cars auctioned off for charity, that is.

Of course, the S1 LM is a pretty special thing. Just five will be built as a tribute to the McLaren F1 GTR, and each will get a 4.3-litre naturally aspirated V12 that revs to 12,100rpm and produces 710bhp. And yes, it has a manual gearbox. Good Lord.

At the auction over the weekend, the S1 LM was flown in by helicopter. Although the new owner will be pleased to hear that wasn’t their actual car dangling in mid-air. That was the show car, because theirs hasn’t been built yet.

That may be good news for the jammy new owner though, because we’re told that as part of their rather pricey purchase, they will now be able to “participate in final development test drives, offering personal feedback on performance to further optimise the car to their individual taste”. Sounds a bit more involved than a bespoke paintjob and initials stitched into the headrests, doesn’t it?

The auction listing also made it clear that the eventual winner would be given an “exquisite 500-page monograph dedicated to the S1 LM, featuring stunning photographs, detailed specifications, and most importantly, copies of original sketches and handwritten notes from Gordon’s personal notebook”. Probably worth a small sum in itself...