VIN: the John Studholme McLaren F1 chassis 059
History of chassis 059
Chassis 059 was the 59th of 64 F1 road cars built and one of six assembled in the final year of production: 1998.
It was painted the most popular F1 colour, Magnesium Silver (one of 18).
Uniquely, chassis 059 was built with an uprated headlight configuration. In an attempt to bring the F1’s lighting capability up to the same high standard as the rest of the car, McLaren fitted slightly shorter headlight housings and the lenses from a BMW Z1.
Inside, 059 was equipped with GT upholstery coloured black with red alcantara seat inserts.
The one-off McLaren was delivered to its first owner, John Studholme, in May 1998. It replaced Studholme’s original Calypso Red F1 road car (chassis 017) and was later joined by by an F1 GTR (the ex-Team Lark chassis 14R).
In 1983, Studholme and his German business partner, Helmut Michele, started Dynamic Cassette International (DCI). The company originally had two manufacturing plants, one in Studholme’s home town of Boston, Lincolnshire, and the other in Dortmund.
DCI initially started out making cassette cartridges for typewriters and dot matrix computers. Later, Studholme and Michele split; Studholme continued to run the DCI brand and introduced a range of inkjet printer cartridges under the Jet Tec banner. Jet Tec cartridges were compatible with most major printer brands and available at substantially lower prices than the manufacturer’s own products.
In December 1998, Studholme returned chassis 059 to McLaren where it was fitted with the High Downforce Kit. He retained the car until 2012, by which time had covered a little over 16,000 miles.
059 was subsequently sold to a collector in the USA.
Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: RM Sotheby’s - https://rmsothebys.com/
