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Have McLaren F1 values topped out?

The McLaren F1 was a game-changer when it came out in the early 1990s, and it's still widely regarded as one of the finest supercars ever made. It's little wonder that values have been climbing in recent years. The question for collectors is now: Will prices keep rising, or have they reached their zenith? As recently as 2006, you could pick one up for less than $1 million: the database at classic car insurance firm Hagerty shows that an example in fair condition 10 years ago was worth around $700,000, while a top-notch, concours-ready specimen was valued at about $1.15 million. That seemed like a lot at the time, but just two years later, that range had skyrocketed to between $2.3 million and $3 million. Suddenly those 2006 prices seemed like a smart investment in hindsight, but after that initial jump, they stayed around that level for several more years before things started getting crazy. "Buyers over the last several years have been end users as opposed to speculators and they routinely drive and enjoy the cars." – Jonathan Klinger, Hagerty By the start of 2013, values had jumped to between $4.1 and 5.3 million. By the end of that year, they were up to between $6.5 and 8.9 million. And by the end of 2014, they had reached $7.9 million for one in fair condition, and over $10 million for a pristine example. But then things leveled out again. "Values have risen quickly," notes Jonathan Klinger, vice president at Hagerty, "but it isn't a bubble situation. Buyers over the last several years have been end users as opposed to speculators and they routinely drive and enjoy the cars." Sports Car Market records that the last F1 to change hands at auction was a 1998 model that RM Sotheby's sold for $13.75 million as part of the Pinnacle Portfolio in Monterey last summer. But that example had the rare best-of-both-worlds combination of the LM performance upgrades with the road-spec interior to make it stand out above the rest. Gooding & Company sold another F1 over the same weekend in 2013 for $8.47 million, but a year later, a seller refused a high bid of $10.75 million for a mint-condition example. "For the time being, we see a very stable market for F1s," says David Brynan, senior specialist at Gooding.

Gordon Murray's reborn F1 will reportedly have a V12 and a manual

The McLaren P1 is not a McLaren F1 successor. The Senna is not an F1 successor. Neither is the Lamborghini Centenario, or LaFerrari, or the Bugatti Divo, or the Brabham BT62, or the Aston Martin Valkyrie, or the Koenigsegg Jesko. According to Gordon Murray, an F1 successor does not exist. So he's going to build one. In an interview and report from Road & Track, Murray said, "I truly believe nobody's done another McLaren F1 since the F1. And although very few auto journalists have had the chance to drive an F1, we're inclined to agree, just based on how specific of a car the F1 was. Not even McLaren's new Speedtail, which does have a center seating position, can be considered a spiritual successor, as it has a hybrid powertrain. The F1 was an engineering marvel when it was introduced in 1992, and it remains one in 2019. The combination of the center seating position, the 542-horsepower V12, and the 2,244-pound dry weight is nearly impossible to recreate today, thanks to the loads of safety standards, added technology, and more complicated powertrains. Nearly impossible is not impossible, though. According to the report, Murray's new car would have all the features of the old, but better. It will have a V12 powerplant linked to a manual transmission, and the driver will sit in the middle of the car. Like many supercars today (including McLarens), it will use a carbon fiber monocoque, which helped Murray keep the car light. He claims it weighs less than 2,200 pounds, which is bananas. For full information about timing, pricing, availability, and more details about the car, read the full report and all of Murray's quotes at Road & Track. Related Video:

McLaren's baby P13 coming next year with multiple bodystyles, $160K sticker price

Though you could hardly call it "cheap" by most standards, when McLaren Automotive booted up with the launch of the MP4-12C three years ago, it was, relatively speaking, the most affordable McLaren yet. Cheaper than the original McLaren F1, cheaper than the SLR it made for Mercedes-Benz, and certainly cheaper than any of the racing machinery for which the firm is known. From there, however, things only got more expensive. The 12C Spider arrived with a higher list price than the coupe, the P1 that much more so, and the 650S slots in between the two. As we reported last week, there's a new flagship codenamed P15 in the works that will be less expensive than the P1, but still significantly more than the 12C or 650S. So when will McLaren offer something a little bit more obtainable? That's the next project in the pipeline. Following the internal nomenclature that dubbed the 12C as P11, the 650S as P11M, P1 as P12 and the aforementioned upcoming flagship as P15, the forthcoming "baby McLaren" is known around Woking as the P13. (Which only makes us wonder what the P14 might be, but that's a question for another time.) What we'll be looking at with the P13 (whatever it will be called once it reaches production) is a two-door supercar based on the same carbon Monocell that underpins the rest of the McLaren lineup but will not, contrary to what Car and Driver predicts, be substantially smaller than the 12C. What it will be is cheaper – at least, relatively speaking, that is. In correspondence with Autoblog, McLaren communications chief Wayne Bruce confirms that the P13 will carry a sticker price starting "from around two thirds of what a 12C would cost you today." That would place it around $160,000 (less than what C/D forecasts) and square between the latest Porsche 911 Turbo and Turbo S or the V10 and V10 Plus versions of the Audi R8. "Guessing that its styling might be influenced by P1's, or indeed a 650S," we're told, "is as obvious as saying it'll have two seats." McLaren also confirms that it "will be offered in more than one bodystyle," which we'd take to mean coupe and convertible versions as are offered on the 12C and 650S, but leaves the door open to all sorts of additional possibilities in the future. We're told not to expect the P13 to debut this year, but given McLaren's cadence of revealing one new model per annum, we'd look forward to seeing it sometime in 2015.