Kiwi-owned 1994 McLaren F1 supercar sells for $30,805,000 at Sotheby's auction

Saturday, 17 August 2019

A 1994 McLaren F1 'LM-Specification' owned by Kiwi entrepreneur Andrew Bagnall has sold for $30,805,000.

What could be New Zealand's most expensive car was just sold for a whopping $30,805,687.

The 1994 McLaren F1 supercar went under the hammer RM Sotheby's Monterey office in California, United States on Saturday evening New Zealand time.

While the sale price, which converts to US $19,805,000, set a new world record for McLaren, it was slightly lower than expected. The car had been tipped to fetch about NZ$32m.

Before the recent sale, it was owned by Kiwi entrepreneur, NBR rich-lister and amateur race car driver Andrew Bagnall.

Auckland engineer Peter Herbert spent 20 years lovingly restoring a 1968 McLaren.

*Rolls-Royce which is said to have transported the Queen being sold in Auckland**

It was one of 63 of the model built and just one of two modified by the factory to Le Mans specifications.

The identity of the new owner of the supercar is yet to be revealed.

Sotheby's had described the vehicle as 'the world's most revered modern supercar, the best imaginable iteration of an already perfect machine' and 'that rare supercar that knows no critic'.

In 2017, Bagnall told BBC's Top Gear that of all the cars he had owned, the McLaren was so extraordinary that it would be a 'real loss if I let it go'.

But it appears he now wants someone else to experience the thrill of owning the McLaren.

'The modifications have turned it from a comfortable, easy road-going car to a very taut quasi-racing machine for the road,' Bagnall said in 2017.

He added the McLaren 'changes gear with a snap like no other car on the planet'.