Nick Mason is selling his pop-art McLaren F1 GTR, and it could be the priciest McLaren ever
A rock star, a Le Mans prototype and a very loud paint job
Some cars have a good story. This one has all of them at once. Nick Mason, Pink Floyd's drummer and one of the most respected collectors in the business, is parting with his 1996 McLaren F1 GTR, a factory prototype wearing the wildest livery McLaren ever signed off. The estimate alone tells you how special it is: north of 35 million dollars.
The first of the 1996 cars
Chassis 10R is not just any F1 GTR. Completed at Woking in December 1995, it was the first car built to 1996 specification and is one of only two short-tail GTR prototypes, the other being 01R, the car that won Le Mans outright in 1995. Just nine F1 GTRs were made to this spec. McLaren kept 10R for itself, using it for winter testing at Magny-Cours and a 12-hour endurance run, before it ran in pre-qualifying for the 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans with David Brabham at the wheel, where it placed eighth in class and 20th overall.
Why it looks like that
The scarlet and yellow scheme has earned it the nickname The Pop Art F1, and it is the only F1 GTR ever to wear a livery created by the factory rather than a team or sponsor. The story behind it is wonderful. Gordon Murray's brief was essentially that if you are going to do something, you should go mad. Ron Dennis reportedly objected to the red, worried it looked too Ferrari, and Murray's response was simply that no manufacturer owns a primary colour. Three decades on, it still looks gloriously of its moment.
From race prototype to road car
In 1999 McLaren converted the car for road use, registering it as K40 MCL, one of the earliest F1 GTR-to-road conversions, carried out with Paul Lanzante's outfit. That is the same Lanzante name still making road-legal racing cars today. Nick Mason bought it that year, becoming its first private owner, and the Lanzantes have looked after it ever since. Rather than hide it away, Mason has used it, showing the car at Retromobile in 2007 and at the Goodwood Members' Meeting in 2012, 2017 and 2022.
AutoNext Take
This is about as good as a provenance file gets. A factory prototype, a Le Mans campaign, a one-off livery signed off by Gordon Murray, a road conversion by Lanzante, and nearly three decades in the care of a thoughtful owner who actually drove and displayed it. If it clears its estimate it will become the most expensive McLaren ever sold, and frankly it is hard to argue with that.
It also caps an extraordinary Monterey sale, which already includes the late Vince Zampella's hypercar collection. Our only hope is that whoever buys it follows Mason's example and keeps using it. A car with this much colour and history deserves to be seen, not stored.
