Ultra-Rare McLaren F1 LM-Spec For Sale By RM Sotheby’s New Private Sales Division

RM Sotheby’s has been known to auction off some extremely rare vehicles. And that’s just what we have here. But this one’s not crossing the auction block. Instead it’s being offered by the auctioneer’s new Private Sales department, which means any prospective buyer won’t have to contend with rival bidders to take it home – just pay the (assuredly huge) asking price.

It’s a McLaren F1, but not just “any” McLaren F1. This is an LM-Specification example, the first of just two made by McLaren Special Operations. It’s a road car, but was stripped down to near-race-spec and fitted with the competition-type engine. It also features the more extreme “extra high downforce package,” but retains the road car’s interior treatments, and even has a sat-nav system fitted – which, needless to say, isn’t something you’d find in most racers.

This isn’t the first time that RM Sotheby’s has handled this specific car. It previously auctioned it off three years ago in Monterey, where it sold for a mammoth $13.7 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’d be more than $14 million in today’s money. That was also enough to make it the most expensive British car ever sold at auction up to that point, though the sum has since been eclipsed by another McLaren F1 that Bonhams sold at the same event just last year for $15.6 million, by a Jaguar D-Type that RM sold (also in Monterey) two years ago for nearly $22 million, and by an Aston Martin DBR1 (also sold by RM in Monterey last year) for over $22.5 million.

Though RM Sotheby’s Private Sales division hasn’t disclosed how much the current owner is asking for the car this time around, we’d expect it to go for at least as much as it went for at auction in 2015.

If the McLaren isn’t your particular cup of English Breakfast tea, RM Sotheby’s new Private Sales department also has an award-winning 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680 S Torpedo Sport available for $7 million, a 1960 MB 300 SL roadster for $1.3 million, a 2003 Aston Martin DB AR1 Zagato for $395k, and a 1930 Bentley Speed Six, an alloy-bodied ’66 Ferrari 275 GTB, and ’61 Ferrari 400 Superamerica Aerodinamico all listed with prices undisclosed.