“It hadn’t been driven in six months,” said John Lantz, Rincon Valley assistant fire chief. That’s already a great way to start this story off, isn’t it? Well, Irv Kessler, 53, of Minnesota, left his McLaren F1 in storage for the winter. A total of six months. Kessler had only had the McLaren out of storage for only a day when he was driving and other people on the road had tried to alert him of the flames shooting out of the back of the car. He pulled over just in time to watch the light show engulfing his almost $3 million car.
This particular McLaren was a 1995 F1. As you may know, very few of these cars were built in general. Only 64 McLaren F1 road cars were made total. A much smaller amount not fully known was shipped to America. It was very hard to get the F1 approved for the U.S. market as it was made to only accomodate certain safety specifications from the start. The United States didn’t really configure into that plan. A total of 100 McLaren F1s were produced up from 1993-1998.
Shortly after catching fire, and as Mr. Kessler watched his car burn to the ground, the local fire department arrived and were able to put out the engine fire before any other damage was done. Luckily there was no damage to the interior of the car. Only the rear of the car and the engine. Still a considerable loss of vehicle. I wonder what percentage of damage this fire did to the car? Maybe it’s totalled?
Of the 100 McLaren F1s, 5 were McLaren F1 LMs (Le Mans), 3 F1 GTs, 64 F1 road cars, along with 18 GTR race cars for 95-96 (9 each year) and 10 for 1997.
Without getting into too much more history of the BMW engined, Gordon Murray masterpieced, first supercar of the world, the McLaren F1 is one of the most prized cars ever to be made. It can draw well into the millions of dollars at auctions. More information can be found on McLaren Automotives website.
Even though this particular McLaren was virtually ruined, it’s being shipped back to England to be fixed and repaired. I wonder how much that will cost? Luckily it was insured for $3 million even.
Hey, at least it wasn’t crashed and wrecked doing stupid stunts in the streets like pretty much every Ferrari Enzo, Porsche Carrera GT, and the likes. But, I still say we take a club to Mr. Kessler for helping to almost kill the greatest automobile produced in the history of the world.
-Josh
“Happy Motoring!”
[Source: FastestCar via PressDemocrat and PressDemocrat]
