BMW made a big show in the Concorso d’Elanza Villa d’Este this year. Here we saw the M2 CS and the M8-based speed top for the first time. However, a car does not necessarily have to wear the legendary round to arouse our interest. For example, we take this McLaren F1 GTR, an endurance racing driver with a mighty, naturally sucked V12 engine. The car in question is chassis #11r, which originally belongs to Fabian Giroix Racing.
It is believed that it has an interesting background story, not only because of its BMW heart. According to legend, Mercedes-AMG bought (Leash?) The car from its second owner, the French racing team Larbre Compéation. It used it as a test mule for what became the legendary CLK GTR shortly afterwards. The endurance racing driver wore the painting of the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer Franck Muller. Before it changed the owner, it was driven by Fabien Giroix, Jean-Denis Délétraz and Didier Cottaz in the FIA GT.
The BMW S60 power house was removed from the engine compartment to make room for the AMG M120 engine. Darüber hinaus wurde die ursprüngliche Karosserie abgezogen und durch eine diskrete, langschwanzige Hülle ersetzt, sodass Mercedes die aerodynamischen Qualitäten des Autos testen konnte, ohne seine neue Identität zu enthüllen. It was later secretly tested on the Jarama route in Spain, where it was quick from the start and even put on LAP records. However, cooling problems disabled the performance. Ultimately, the tests came to a standstill after Bernd Schneider fell into a tire wall.
Despite the setback, Mercedes-AMG managed to prepare the car for the race in just a few months. It was reportedly developed in just 128 days. Während es Le Mans nie gewann, war die CLK GTR Ende der neunziger Jahre eine dominierende Kraft und sicherte sich in 22 Rennen in zwei Spielzeiten 17 Siege, zwei Team -Titel und zwei Fahrermeisterschaften in 22 Rennen.
Seitdem wurde Chassis #11R von McLaren zu Hause in Woking restauriert, wo es die charakteristische Papaya -Lackierung und einen Umbau von Straßenautos erhielt. It is an extremely rare car when you consider that only 28 F1 -GTRs were built. Of these were only 18 short cocks like this. The owner changed several times during his turbulent life Classic driver The notification of the current owner paid 30 million euros.
