[GTR LVR]

Your contact makes several valid points. No question rarity in and of itself is nothing if the object in question is not desirable. And I could not agree more with his opinion of the GT, which is rare in great part because there was little to no demand for it! The only reason McLaren built it in the first place was due to FIA regulations requiring a 'road going' example as the basis for the 1997 GTR.

He also accurately describes certain differences between the GTR and road car experience, although I think his conclusions to these differences is, as with most things, a personal opinion and not universal. For instance, yes, a GTR is noisier and a far rawer driving experience compared to the road car, but as he stated, neither is a practical daily driver. While the road car is certainly more 'practical,' anyone who has driven or had a ride in both no doubts agrees the GTR makes to road car experience feel almost normal. Both types are really best experienced as relatively short thrill rides, and my point simply is the GTR is a different 'amazing experience.'

As for any bias towards associating famous drivers with cars, each era has its moments and everyone has their favorites. That said, I wouldn't be so certain that Nelson Piquet (3-time F1 world champion) won't hold up against Quick-Vic Elford over time. I would also question the number of racing cars vs. road cars valued over £2M. Whatever the ratio, more types of race cars than I can count trade over that figure from the pre-1980 period, and in fact, it is their unique competition histories (often with obscure drivers and races) that distinguish them.

In summary, clearly everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this includes your friend. The point in all of this is that in my opinion, the GTR on a stand alone basis is a magnificent car, and based on its history, rarity, and the experience it provides, appears undervalued relative to the road car and LM. One person's opinion...

Originally Posted by hurstg01

I've had a nice email from the owner of the F1 I alluded to earlier. In the email he states that, yes, GTR's are more scarce than normal road cars, but there are fewer GT's than LM's, and he doesn't think there is a lengthy queue of people looking to buy one of the "three ungainly Long-tails." Rarity, in itself, is not decisive, which is a valid point.

He states that only one standard road car has ever sold at or above that level, and the price included the auction premium (plus VAT). The car was unique [in as such that it was the ex-Park lane showroom car and had very few miles on it] and the price was achieved after an elaborate marketing campaign which included, purposefully or not, a major underestimate of the selling price which had the effect of hyping the interest. He believes that a realistic price for a typical road car these days would be roughly £1.5M.

He continued by saying there are very few racing cars that trade at £2M or above, and they tend to be things with an exceptional heritage. There are the old Silver Arrows, which were special in a number of ways. More recent racing cars of that value would be things like the Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512M. They are special both because they were highlights of the "Golden Era" of sports car racing, and because most of them have a substantial provenance, having been driven by Andretti, Ickx, Peterson, Elford, Siffert, Rodriguez, etc. Apart from the Le Mans winner, how many GTR's have a special provenance? The Harrods car chassis #06R...maybe? He says It's nothing against the people who raced the GTR's, but their names will never have the fan appeal of "Andretti" and "Elford". In the mid-late '90s, sports car racing was a shadow of what it had been 20-40 years earlier. On that last point I agree, but I suppose it depends on your age

He continued by saying unlike another group of expensive vintage racing cars - Maserati 300S, Ferrari 750 Monza, Aston Martin DBR1, etc - there are few events in which one could compete with a GTR. Those older sports cars can also be driven on the road with ease, and they are beautiful to look at. You're not going to take a GTR to a track day, at least not to really drive it. That leaves us with using a GTR on the road. For an hour, it is an absolutely fabulous, enthralling road car. For a day, it is too much. There is no A/C, but the windows don't open. The steering lock is inadequate. The ramp angle is inadequate. You've got that awful wiring loom in the offside passenger seat, but no storage space. The cage makes access into the car difficult, and makes it difficult for a passenger to ride comfortably. After a while, the noise of the straight-cut gears is almost unbearable. Even the standard F1 road car is not practical as a road car, and the racing version is that much less practical. So what's the point of owning one, as an alternative to all the other things that can be got for less than £2M, or less than £1M? The GTR's are fine things, but he daresays that their market value is a function of the road car's value. If there had been no road car, which in a sense would make the GTR's even rarer, he doubts that a GTR would fetch £1M; you can get a Porsche GT1, which was both a rarer and a better racing car, for half as much.
This may be true for after-the-fact, retrospective knock-offs. In the case of limited editions produced within the full production run, however, the limited edition would normally be worth more. The F1 LM will always be worth more than the standard road car. The LM shares some of the GTR's limitations, but not all of them. As I stated in an earlier post, I'll re-visit this later in the week