McLaren are selling five fully-functioning Formula One cars driven by champions, including Lewis Hamilton and the late Ayrton Senna, with one also tested by the Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, Reuters reported from London.
The cars, to be sold through the high-end dealer Tom Hartley Jr and expected to raise tens of millions of dollars, will be prepared by the reigning constructors' champions for their next owners.
Hartley Jr also sold the collection of the former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, and 20 road cars belonging to the late McLaren co-owner Mansour Ojjeh.
"We have decided to part with these iconic McLaren Formula 1 cars because we feel that having them simply sitting in storage is a disservice to what they represent," the McLaren Racing chief executive, Zak Brown, said in a statement on 18 October.
"These cars were built to be driven and raced, and we want to see them being used and enjoyed. We believe that is the best way to keep our history alive and our heritage business active."
The five span 32 years of McLaren history. It starts with two MP4/6A cars, chassis numbers 04 and 07, with Honda V12 engines, raced by the Austrian Gerhard Berger and tested by Senna during the 1991 title-winning campaign. Chassis 04 finished second in a one-two at the San Marino Grand Prix, with the McLarens lapping the entire field; chassis 07 came second at McLaren's home British Grand Prix. Both have been in the team's possession ever since.
A 2012 McLaren MP4/27A, chassis 01, raced by the 2009 world champion Jenson Button and tested by the seven-times world champion Hamilton, is also for sale.
Two cars raced exclusively by the reigning champion Lando Norris, in 2021 and 2023, complete the group. The 2021 MCL35M took Norris to the podium in Imola, Monaco and Monza, while the 2023 MCL37A-03 won successive races in Singapore and Japan and was tested after the season by a roster of drivers including Norris's team-mate Oscar Piastri and Mick Schumacher, son of Michael.
The 2023 McLaren was driven by Pitt in a private test at Austin's Circuit of the Americas in June last year in connection with his starring role in F1 the Movie, and is the most modern Formula One car offered for sale to a private owner. Pitt reportedly took it up to a speed of 317km/h.
"It is incredibly rare for a collector to have the opportunity to acquire race-driven Grand Prix cars directly from the manufacturer and team that built and campaigned them, and that makes this a very special offering," Hartley said.
What a car of this kind is sold on is provenance: the list of people who have sat in it. By that standard the 2023 chassis has the longest list in the sale. A reigning world champion raced it, his team-mate tested it, the son of an F1 great drove it, and so did a leading man.
Provenance records who held the wheel. It has never had a column for why. On the catalogue's own terms, the 317km/h lap at Austin and the one-two at San Marino sit side by side as things that happened to the cars, and the Austin lap is the more recent of the two by a comfortable margin.
The heritage test settles it. Mr Brown says the cars were built to be driven and raced, and objects to them sitting in storage. Four of the five have been driven and raced. The fifth has been driven, raced and acted in, which is one more category of use than anything else in the lot can claim, and therefore the most thoroughly enjoyed vehicle McLaren owns. The Department of Unnecessary Research has asked the dealer to confirm whether a lap driven for a camera is logged as competition mileage or as a screen credit, and has been told the ledger has one column.
A racing car's value is the list of people who have driven it. The list has never needed to say what they were doing there.