VIN: McLaren F1 chassis 007
History of chassis 007
Chassis 007 was the seventh F1 production car built and one of 25 examples manufactured in 1994. It was configured with arguably the best exterior colour scheme for an F1: Jet Black (which included 10% metal flake).
In total, McLaren built just four Jet Black cars from the total production run of 64 units: chassis 005, 007, 015 and 072.
The first owner of chassis 007, reputedly a Saudi royal, also specified cream leather upholstery with a dark brown alcantara upper dash and brown carpet.
During the first few years of 007’s life it accumulated very few miles and was reputedly only driven by McLaren technicians when serviced in situ in Switzerland. The rest of the time the car was kept in a state-of-the-art storage facility.
On 7th September 1998, chassis 007 was auctioned by Brooks (now Bonhams) at the Longchamp horse racing course in Paris. By this time it had covered around 300km.
The car was purchased at the auction by Chris Palmer of Barnsley, Yorkshire, who operated a range of businesses in the property, leisure and sportswear industries. The Jet Black McLaren joined Palmer’s collection which, at the time, included a Ferrari F40 and one of the five Jaguar XJ220s originally built by TWR to S specification.
Palmer registered chassis 007 on the plate M14 MCL and drove it extensively over the next two-to-three years.
Around the turn of the century, 007 was sold to American IT consultant and serial F1 owner, Frank Selldorff. Notably, Selldorff had previously owned F1 LM chassis LM3 which he later sold to Ralph Lauren.
Chassis 007 returned to Europe in 2010, since which time it has gone through the hands of a couple more owners.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Bonhams - https://www.bonhams.com/
