One of Gordon Murray’s S1 LM V12 supercars is coming up for auction… for $20m+

This is one of just five S1 LM V12 supercars built by Professor Gordon Murray and his crack team of motoring magicians. It is unquestionably gorgeous, superhumanly powerful, and astonishingly expensive.

How expensive? Potentially $20m+ expensive. We know this because this one of just five S1 LM V12 supercars built by Murray and his magicians will be auctioned off at the end of the month for charity, and RM Sotheby’s reckons it’ll go for big bucks.

“The S1 LM Chassis #1 offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with the original creator and help write automotive history’s next chapter,” said Shelby Myers, global head of private sales at RM Sotheby’s.

Hoo boy is this thing special. Built as a modern-day interpretation to the Le Mans-winning F1 GTR – another bit of Murray magic – it’s a greatest hits of the T.50 and T.50s Niki Lauda.

Though aside from the three-seat layout and six-speed gearbox, perhaps the S1 LM’s very greatest hit is that engine. The not-at-all standard 4.0-litre V12 was posted back to Cosworth’s finishing school and given new exams: it came back as a 4.3-litre that revs to over 12,000rpm and churns out over 700bhp. That’s yer twenty mil’s worth right there.

That, and the fact it just looks pretty much perfect. The proportions, the nose, the rear, the wing, the roof scoop, the interior. Heck, even the weight, targeted at under a tonne.

And it’s also a car that carries very personal resonance for Murray, because he worked on the S1 LM during his successful recovery from cancer last year. “The amount of effort and focus that you have to put into a brand new motor car, you haven't got time to think about anything else and designing this motor car was a big part of getting me through that,” he said.

“The S1 LM is special for all of those reasons.”