The Mclaren GT

[_MrMan_]

Well how odd, I was thinking about making this thread a couple of days ago and come here today to see the new hi-res picture of the above mentioned god of automobiles.

Stunning..

Anyhow, I don't really know all that much about the GT and would like to know more.. Being that there are only 3, I'm doubting there is much info around, but it would be good if we could get all the info (and perhaps known pictures?) of the car in this thread.

What is different, what is known about their performance, what are all the reasons behind their development and who owns them?

And have any of them ever been *really*driven!

I'll begin with the quote from mclarencars.com

"The final variant of the McLaren F1 road car, the F1 GT, was developed to achieve downforce matching that of the F1 LM, but with less drag. To achieve this balance, the F1 GT featured extended front bodywork and revised rear-deck profile.

With such sleek lines and dramatic new wheel-arch louvres the F1 GT became visually the most exciting McLaren yet.

Powered by the hand-built McLaren BMW S 70/2 6.1-litre V12 engine the F1 GT offered instant performance at any speed, in any gear. Featuring a redesigned interior, upholstered in fine Connolly leather and Alcantara suede the F1 GT set a new standard of luxury for Grand Touring cars.

Continuing the design philosophy of the original F1 and the spectacular F1 LM, the F1 GT is the ultimate Grand Touring car."

[ArchangelGTR]

Didn't mean to ignore you. Was trying to research homologation rules. (I figured someone would have responded already.)

As far as the reason why the GT was developed.. simple explanation - evolution.. specifically racing evolution.

Many factors and weaknesses were exposed in the 1996 GTR: transmission, aerodynamics, weight and power. If you can imagine the McLaren being considered heavy. But in racing trim.. it was. The Porsche GT1 showcased that year was completely dominant.. moreso than the 95 GTR's were in their year. The GT1 literally lapped the GTR's in the couple of races they appeared in during the 96 BPR season. (And unfortunately for McLaren the GT1's were only going 8/10 speed). What's the point of accepting the 1st place trophy after you've been lapped by a test car? With Porsche continually developing their GT1 for 97 and Mercedes entering the arena, competition heated up quickly. McLaren needed to do something to even consider being competitive.

McLaren went back to the drawing board and windtunnel. Expanding the body to be within ACO allowed width of 2m. Elongated nose and tail to improve downforce without sginificantly increasing drag. Lightening the car: The elongations are empty areas. Increase or maintain the horsepower to get more despite the restrictors. Change the transmission to sequential to handle the power and torque.

They built 3 GT's to comply with ACO/FIA homologation rules. (According to DA, they needed to build 1 a month.) Some companies get away with building just a single street version of their car. Prior to that decade, homologation rules required at least 100 street versions of the race car. Since there are only 3 GT's, it certainly makes them that much rarer.

[amanichen]

I want to add that:

The F1 did very well, and was very competitive considering its original intended use as a high performance, but practical road car. The competition in the mid 90s from Porsche and Mercedes came in the form of purpose built racers, with only a bare minimum of sparsely-trimmed, cramped, road examples being produced to satisfy racing regulations. The F1 was intended to be roadgoing only, with no original racing plans, and only was developed as a racer after threats from private racing teams. The F1s never raced for a McLaren factory team -- all the GTRs were privately owned and raced.

[FortuneF1]

there was never a factory mclaren team, but there was a factory bmw team which fielded 2 mclaren f1 gtr's, with 1 back up maybe? same as gulf team davidoff right? the fina sponsored cars were team bmw factory cars, hence the bmw motorsport decals on the wings and such. i think the 1997 f1 gt/gtr are the best looking mclarens built. team bmw only lost the 1997 fia gt championship to the mercedes factory team by a few points, in fact it came down to laguna seca, the last race if i remember correctly, porsche didnt turn out to be a factor after the necessary changes were made to the f1, the 1997 season was all about 1997 mclaren f1 gtr vs. 1997 mercedes clk-gtr. it wasnt until 1998 that porsche became a factor, when the year old 1997 gtr was completely out classed by the all new 1998 clk-lm and completely redesigned 1998 911 gt-1. but porsche suffered from reliability, and mercedes dominated by winning every race that year. only 1 f1 gtr was raced that year, and it was the all black with red stripe davidoff #15 car that wore the all black loctite #41 livery in the 1998 le mans race. it was a privateer effort headed by thomas bscher, and happens to be my favorite livery of the f1 gtr by the way, team lark is second. i remember the good ol days of fia gt racing, but mercedes was single handedly responsible for killing the gt1 category because cars such as it and the porsche and mclaren were banned after the 1998 year because of the way mercedes dominated and the way they and porsche got around the rules by building race cars and adapting them for street later on instead of taking street cars and making them race cars, which is what mclaren did only after considerable privateer pressure for 1995. anyway theres my lil clip of fia gt history involving the 2 years the "long-tail" gtr was raced.
oh yeah and warsteiner beer is damn good, try it if you haven't yet...

[FortuneF1]

oh yeah and i dont know crap about the mclaren in the BPR global gt series, i was only 14 and 15 during the 1997 and 1998 fia gt series... and mercedes is also the reason gt1 is vipers and corvettes now and gtp is the class for closed coupe le mans racers... stupid rule bending...killed the f1 gtr program...