The information on the Black LM's doesn't come from an article, it actually comes from the Chassis History printed on the poster which is included with "Driving Ambition". The poster has the chassis number, build order and original exterior color of every McLaren F1 produced.
It lists two of the LM's as being painted "Black w/graphics". The poster is extremely accurate in other respects, so I don't have any reason to believe that they would be wrong about those two cars. The information that
andybee posted is enough confirmation for me that the poster is indeed right.
Here's a photo I took of the poster I'm referring to. I used to have a close up of the LM section hosted on the web, but I removed it to make room for some more pics. I can post it later tonight if you'd like to see it.
As for the other customer LMs, you have identified the 3 cars that I'm aware of. Like you, I believe that LM3, the Massachusetts car was the same one formerly owned by Morrison reducing that number to two cars that have been seen. You left out the prototype - XP1 LM - but that car hasn't really been seen since the 0-100-0 test done by CAR magazine. That car remains in the possession of McLaren Cars though. I doubt it would ever be sold.
EDIT: Incidentally - in regards to this comment:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by scoob
If there were 2 F1 LM's that were indeed black then I'm surprised that McLaren themselves don't know.
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I'm quite certain that McLaren Cars keep meticulous records on all the cars including any changes that might be made to colors or options along the way. However, I'm sure it's simply easier for them to state that all 5 customer LMs were painted the Historic Orange than it would be to explain that 2 of them were actually painted Black. It takes away from a bit of the nostalgia surrounding the LMs to explain it any other way then "...all five were painted orange...".
>8^)
ER