McLaren W1 review

The W1 costs £2m, and is only available in a limited run of 399 cars. But before you rush off to check your bank balance, they’ve all been sold.

We’ve had a look at the configurator, but really you need to head to McLaren Special Operations, where advanced visualisation tools and AR will assist in the process of relieving customers of even more bunce. Certainly, endless fun can be had playing with exterior colour treatments and the carbon fibre.

The W1 comes with a four-year unlimited mileage warranty (six years/75,000km for the battery), and a four-year service plan. Its powertrain, says McLaren, should require the same sort of annual maintenance as the one in the Artura, regardless of how much track time the car racks up. Claimed fuel combined consumption is 23.2mpg, but of course that depends entirely on how you use the car.

We realise that almost everything above is academic, although owners may well be monitoring P1 values versus other hypercars. McLaren made 375 of those, each cost £866k when new, and they’re currently making between £1.5 and £1.7m. Its contemporary, the LaFerrari, was £1.1m new, and is now worth up to £4m (even more if it’s an Aperta). The Porsche 918 Spyder cost £781k new back in 2014, and you’d need at least £2m for one now.

So, the W1 is an investment grade car, for sure, just not as much of a sure thing as others. Unless it follows the trajectory of the McLaren F1… although there are far fewer of those (just 64 road cars). £540k new in 1994, around £20m now.