If you’re a Carscoops regular, you may remember a story from 2009 about a car fanatic from Poland who was working on a McLaren F1 replica.
Well, after eight years of work (!), the car is finally completed with 48-year-old amateur mechanic Jacek Mazur spending £20,000 ($32,862) on spare parts and materials to build the car. Reportedly, it is capable of going up to 200 mph (322 km/h), but we’d advise you to take the last number with a bucket-load of salt.
Still, it is certainly a decent and laudable effort, especially if you consider that a real McLaren F1, which can go up to 240 mph (386 km/h), sold for £5.1 million ($8.38 million) at a classic car auction in August this year.
A health-and-safety advisor, Jacek Mazur fell in love with the McLaren F1 as soon as he saw it. “I knew I had to have one. I couldn’t afford it so I knew I would have to build one myself,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.
Considering he has also built replicas of the Lamborghini Countach and Porsche 911, his wish seemed pretty legit. Using an BMW V12 engine (like the original, though, yes that one was developed by BMW M), the brakes from a Mercedes-Benz and a lot of improvising, Mazur has come up with his own McLaren F1, and we have to admit it’s one of the best-looking replicas we’ve seen.
He built the tubular chassis from scratch, which he said was the hardest part of the job, as well as the positioning of the driver’s seat. Compared to the original McLaren F1’s three-seat layout, the replica adds a cramped fourth seat behind the driver, which Mazur calls the “Hammond-seat” – because only small people like the Top Gear presenter could fit in it.
Scroll down to find out more about the car and its builder from the first video, then take a look at the other videos and photos as well – it looks like he’s building more McLaren F1 replicas.
By Dan Mihalascu
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