Now this should be exciting - McLaren versus Enzo on 5th Gear...

[carbuilder2002]

Thanks Mr Bridger,
Certainly makes sense. Certainly would be looking for one if ever I ever had enough money (unlikely) just wondered what went through your mind when contemplating and choosing a partitular car. I assume you did not buy the 1st you came accross, in which case what was wrong with the others or was it just personal taste?
Think I would opt for a GTR as well prefere the front end styling.

Cheers anyway and welcome to the forum and hope you enjoy your car.

carbuilder2002

[mr bridger]

to peleton, i"m curious to know how you knew i had owned 007?, i was the 2nd owner, having bought the car at auction in france in 98 (with just 300mls on it), the first owner being a member of arabian royal family (name witheld for obvious reasons!), sold to frank selldorf in mid 2001 as i recall.....carbuilder, i was introduced to this particular car thru a friend of mine who knew it could be for sale (the owner deciding it was TOO "hard" for him), not a problem for me as i have always preffered the F40 type of car as opposed to the regular models!...also the car was an ex BMW factory car, with good drivers & no huge accident damage ever, there was also speculation that the 2 factory cars (known as " the purple cam cover cars") had "slightly better engines", although i"m sure that would not have happened, BMW supplying the engines & all...would it??...also,to my way of thinking, a car with race provenance & history will always be worth more in the long run than a "standard" model due to its rarity & interesting past (think 250GT0), similar no"s & achievements, especially when it becomes eligible for the "classic le mans" series...thanks, mr bridger.

[Peloton25]

Originally Posted by mr bridger

to peleton, i"m curious to know how you knew i had owned 007?, i was the 2nd owner, having bought the car at auction in france in 98 (with just 300mls on it), the first owner being a member of arabian royal family (name witheld for obvious reasons!), sold to frank selldorf in mid 2001 as i recall...

I have lots of great resources for info which is how your name came to me in reference to #007. You say that you bought the car at auction in France. I have a Christie's Auction catalog from Geneva for Monday 18 May 1998 showing #007 as Lot #53. Is that the auction you purchased the car from or was it later in 1998 at a different auction in France? Just trying to nail down some details on the car's history.

Thanks for the previous ownership details. It seems they must have bought the car just to look at it if it only had 300 miles on it at the time you purchased it. I'm fairly certain the cars were delivered with somewhere between 100-200 miles on them already so that doesn't make for very much use in 4 years.

carbuilder, i was introduced to this particular car thru a friend of mine who knew it could be for sale (the owner deciding it was TOO "hard" for him), not a problem for me as i have always preffered the F40 type of car as opposed to the regular models!...

So you didn't purchase #16R direct from Maranello Motorsport in Melbourne, Australia?

also the car was an ex BMW factory car, with good drivers & no huge accident damage ever, there was also speculation that the 2 factory cars (known as " the purple cam cover cars") had "slightly better engines", although i"m sure that would not have happened, BMW supplying the engines & all...would it??...also,to my way of thinking, a car with race provenance & history will always be worth more in the long run than a "standard" model due to its rarity & interesting past (think 250GT0), similar no"s & achievements, especially when it becomes eligible for the "classic le mans" series...thanks, mr bridger.

I agree - I would have loved to have purchased #16R during the year and a half or so that it was for sale through different sources in the UK. A lightly used race car owned by someone like Ray Bellm is sure to be in good shape overall. Personally, though the finished product looks highly impressive, I would have kept it in it's former FINA paint scheme to tie in with its racing history instead of giving it the papaya respray. Do you have a preference between the two?



I'm curious how you like the interior treatment in the car? I had helped the owner of Maranello Motorsport with reference photos of the LM interior when he was having the car refitted in May 2005. He wanted to get it as close to the look of the LM as McLaren would allow. It seems they weren't willing to entertain that request to the letter, but the final product still looks good.

In what state of tune is the engine at in #16R? Obviously the registraion plate claims 700 BHP and autofocus/Tim has mentioned you stated it has approximately 680hp, yet in this photo and others it would appear that the air restrictors are still fitted to the air intake.



The car would have had closer to 600hp in racing form, so is there record of someone having the work done to bring the car up to LM power levels since it finished racing? As I speculated a few pages back - that would require at least changing the camshafts as well as an ECU remap to account for and take advantage of the extra air coming into the engine.

A final question about the badging on the car. Currently it wears badges like a road car would with the "F1/McLaren" badge in the lower right corner of the rear grillework. That badging was originally placed in the upper right corner on '95/'96 F1 GTRs as you can see from the FINA-paint photo above. The car is completely lacking of a "GTR" badge right now which should be found on the upper left corner of the rear grille. Do you have any plans to add a "GTR" badge to the back of the car or is it fine the way it sits for you? Given the exterior color, do you often find yourself having to explain to folks that it's not really an LM?

Thanks again for your time and trouble here and also thanks for allowing Tiff/5th Gear to put together the segment that sparked this thread too.

>8^)
ER

[mini magic]

Not sold at the Christies action. It was bought at the Brooks auction 6th September 1998

[mr bridger]

good afternoon all, a few answers to your Q"s, as someone has stated earlier, the car was indeed bought at paris auction in france, the only people to drive the car up to that time were DH & SR, two guys who worked at that time in the McLaren service dept (1 of them still does) & serviced the car on there visits to its home....i bought the car thru a friend of mine (dealer) who 1st brought it to my attention while it still lived here (uk), unfortunately by the time he ( & i, to be fair) had got turned around, the car had left for OZ, so we then had it airfreighted back here (those crazy english !!)...i prefer the car in its papaya colour to be fair, i think the "fina" colours look good but perhaps a little OTT for public roads etc...re the no.plate, M700 BHP, i like on the car, but its more a "bhp per tonne" thing than "my car has this", ...re the power of the car, i referred earlier to "purple cam cover" cars, not sure if any of you have ever come across this before?..besides it being what some would assume to be fairly loose speculation, i did actually speak to a charming german chap once (at the GOS) called paul, whilst sitting in my car & having his photograph taken with me (at my request) he informed me of his interesting occupation, that of engine design & build...this "speculation" is based more or less on his comments to me (& others obviously, as i didnt start these "rumours"), paying particular attention to the cars straightline performance relative to the vipers & f40 lm" of that time, the vipers were rumoured to have closer to 700bhp, & the f40 lm 600 to 650bhp in race trim (the f40 lm is a car i know well having owned 1 for 2years, & although it can put up 750bhp in setting 8 (qualifying boost) it cannot run that in race trim due to fuel consumptiion & reliability issues)...weighing approx the same as the f40lm, the mac used to runaway from it on the straights, judge for yourselves!...not sure if anyone has any dyno info relating to this,but the guys at the factory didnt want to comment, apparently (even when i ran 007) "all" engine works were carried out by BMW, & if reqd, the engines were removed from the cars, crated up & shipped back to germany, & when reqd work was completed the engines were shipped back & re-installed..all I can verify (from memory re 007) is that the car feels quicker both in a straight line, & certainly more "planted" than a road F1, granted it should due to less weight...re badging, i dont know why the GTR badge isnt on the grille, although i do have all the race parts in crates, so maybe its in there somewhere along with everything else!...finally,i"ve never been asked the LM Q"s yet, most people tend to stare open mouthed looking at both the car & myself like we just landed from planet ZOG or somewhere, occasionally asking "is that a McLaren"?...thats what the badge says!, thanks, mr bridger.

[Patster]

wonderful insight Mr. Bridger... just out of curiosity, how much time did Tiff get to spend with your cars? and, off camera, was he visibly more excited after driving the mclaren than after the enzo?

[mini magic]

Thank you very much for all the insight, it is greatly appreciated



Chris

[mr bridger]

to patstar, the film crew were with me for approx 10hrs & got 160 mins of film, edited down to 10 mins for the programme...tiff loved the F1, but it is his fav. all time car!...he did comment on the noise issue internally becoming a bit "wearing" perhaps on longer journeys, & also perhaps looking like a bit of a "nerd" wearing headphones on the road, but apart from that, blown away!!...chris, my pleasure, like your logo, it looks familiar to me!!

[tak43]

Thank for insight, here a photo i took at Silverstone 1996 of 16R



tak43

[phantomhitman]

Mr. Bridger,
I would like to thank you for joining and sharing information with your "fans" here. I do not post here alot but I like to read up anything relating to the mighty macs. I am sure everyone here is enjoying your time and info more than you could imagine.

[BMW.WilliamsF1Team]

Mr. Bridger,

Welcome to the forums. It's always great to have an owner take the time out of their schedule to answer our questions. Thank you!

I noticed you mentioned 16R came with some race parts. I know when Maranello Motorsport had 13R for sale, they mentioned it came with spares, but they didn't mention any for 16R. What exactly did 16R come with? Spare engine, body parts, etc? Just curious.

Thanks,
Al

[mr bridger]

hello, tak43, thanks for the photo, i looked on your webpage & you also have 007 on there at GFOS in 99, i think i recognise the "young man" at the side of it trying to "break in" !!.....phantom, thankyou for your welcome.....bmwf1, the spares included, carbon discs, race pads, various extra roll cage, various carbon ducting,,lights, fly off brake cable, spare throttle cables, exhaust system, etc etc....mmm, sadly no spare tub or engine !!, thanks, mr bridger.

[tak43]

Originally Posted by mr bridger

hello, tak43, thanks for the photo, i looked on your webpage & you also have 007 on there at GFOS in 99, i think i recognise the "young man" at the side of it trying to "break in" !!.....phantom, thankyou for your welcome.....bmwf1, the spares included, carbon discs, race pads, various extra roll cage, various carbon ducting,,lights, fly off brake cable, spare throttle cables, exhaust system, etc etc....mmm, sadly no spare tub or engine !!, thanks, mr bridger.

Hi mr bridger that's ok i do have some more of 007 and 16R which i took
from those event's.

tak43

[autofocus]

Hi guys,

Hope you are all well.
Mr Bridger has sent me somemore photos of his Mclaren and also some of his other cars (Enzo,F40 and Zonda) and has asked me to post them on the forum.
As soon as I have uploaded them I will post a link so you can all look at them.

I would have posted this sooner, but I have been on holiday and have only got back today.

Regards

Tim

[chernobyl]

mr bridger, does the gentleman you purchased the F1 from still have his modified GT40 or the 'GT42'...some would call it?