i have an old buddy who lives north of london who i see fairly often since i travel to that great city frequently. he has been successful in his career and is a total car nut...so much so that he owns a high end used car dealership near his home, and he also buys and collects a few sweet cars. his daily driver currently is an e46 m3 csl which we took home from the station to his home.

in his garage are the following cars:

porsche 911 rs--i have been in this car in a prior visit, what a handful!
black ferrari (i forget which one, we didn't even look at it)
new silver mclaren mp4-12c

and he has a mclaren f1 gtr!!

we took the mp4-12c out for a spin on his local roads. this car is unbelievable....we got it up to 153mph on the straightaway, and i have never felt anything like that sort of acceleration. i literally had a hard time keeping my neck from being pushed back by the g force!! even more amazing however is the way the car handles and rides in sport mode...way nicer than the m3 csl and it felt a lot like my stock e92 m3 which is high praise indeed given how this car handles. i think the car is really cool looking inside and out. so far he has had no troubles with the car although there are software glitches that are slowing deliveries generally.

we didn't take the f1 out since it was a cold night be he did let me start it up. i couldn't imagine driving that car on regular roads given how it felt to start it...the car was really, really loud in the garage, but talk about instantaneous throttle response! omg...

afterwards we went out for a bite to eat and then hung out at his house with his daughter and watched a couple of topgear episodes. i was trying to convince him to buy a veyron next...he was warming to the idea but he would have to sell some other cars to do so..i hope he does, but he should keep the mclarens!

i'm a regular guy and this was so far over the top for me i was in awe of what he has in his garage. while i will never have cars such as this, it is great to have a friend who does!!

i have attached some pix of the cars. sorry for the quality, cell phone pix at night indoors is not the best but you will get the idea. i am the guy grinning in the driver's seat of the f1....

 

more pix of the mclarens......

 

I say he keeps the cars he has and forget the Veyron. Nice collection he has!

 

Nice......

 

Awesome. What color is the F1? it looks like Heritage Orange.

 

it is a bright orange, not sure what they call it. pretty astonishing is what i would call it!

 

Forget the Veyron, I'd say go for something more unique, like a limited edition Zonda. An Enzo or Aventador would be nice. But really, once you have a McLaren F1 GTR... You don't really need anything other than the MP4-12C for daily driving

 

The Ferrari your friend has is a superamerica. It is a very rare and beautiful car; one of my favorite ferrari.

 

Awesome!! Great collection!

 

Superb!

 

Thanks for sharing. Agree with the comments. Don't bother with the veyron. Great collection.

 

ok, the bugatti is out!

 

Unreal collection. The F1 is McLaren Orange and was called Papaya back in the day.

Having a Bugatti next to that GTR would just be flat out disrespectful.

 

Is it possible that that color is now called McLaren Heritage Orange? I spent some time at a dealer and that seemed like the same color.

 

w/o pics this would have been called BS, great story and thanks for sharing.