In late 1995[1], five McLaren F1 LM (LM for Le Mans) were built in honour of the five McLaren F1 GTR's which finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, including taking the overall win.[2]
Whereas the standard McLaren F1 was designed to be the ultimate roadcar in the sense that it should be comfortable and usable in everyday conditions despite being a very potent sports car, the LM edition is a lower and stiffer more track machine oriented vehicle, due to i.a. the very stripped down, bare interior, inserting solid aluminium bushings in place of the rubber bushings in the suspension system and omitting the Ground Plane Shear Centre system seen on the standard F1. [3][1]
Although only five F1 LMs were sold, a sixth chassis exists in the form of XP1 LM, the prototype for modifications to the existing F1 to form the new F1 LM. This car is also painted Papaya Orange and is retained by McLaren. This car, reportedly worth $4 million, has been promised by McLaren CEO Ron Dennis to his driver Lewis Hamilton if he should win an additional two Formula One World Championship titles.[4]
The F1 LMs can be identified by their Papaya orange paint. The F1 LM's were painted in this colour in memory and tribute to Bruce McLaren, whose race colour was Papaya orange.[3]
Although all five (and the prototype) were painted Papaya Orange, not all of them remain that colour, three of them (and the prototype) are still Papaya Orange but the two owned by The Sultan of Brunei are painted black.
No comments:
Post a Comment