Actually, the first owner of XP4 was a New Zealander named Sir Roger Bhatnagar who its been said was able to arrange to purchase this very special F1 due to a connection to the Bruce McLaren family trust. When he owned the car it was identical in appearance to how it was when Tiff Needel drove it for that Top Gear segment. News reports claim that Sir Roger paid $950,000 for the car in 1994, and sold it in 2000 to it's current owner for a mere $800,000. Quite a bargain compared to present day F1 values.
 
Here's a pair of shots from when the car was for sale in New Zealand - you can see the interior was still the same at that time.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 0G/xp4.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] /xp4_3.jpg  
It was the car's current (2nd) owner who had the factory redo the interior after his purchase. The new style on the seating surfaces is often referred to as "GT-spec" as that pattern first debutted on the longtail F1 GT road car. Here's a couple of photos taken inside the factory while it was undergoing that refit in 2000.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] yft_ph.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] lsb_ph.jpg  
Safe to assume they carried out service on other necessary items like replacement of the fuel cell at that time. The headlights were also upgraded to HIDs and I believe the larger upgraded radiators may have been fitted to the car as well.
 
XP4 ranks as one of my personal favorite F1s. The owner is also one of the best there is, using the car as intended and never hesitant to share it with other enthusiasts. Here are some other wallpaper quality shots for those who also appreciate it the way that I do:
 
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 25_084.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] cwings.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 0124r1.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 3-PS-l.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 582-PL.jpg  
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 25_075.jpg  
 
Incidentally, only one of the earlier F1 prototypes still exists today and it is XP3 which was given as a present to Gordon Murray at the end of production. Prototype XP1 was crashed in the Namibian desert of Africa during hot weather testing by a BMW test driver very early in its life. XP2 was the F1 used for the barrier crash testing and quite a bit of other development work. While the barrier test didn't damage the car beyond repair, it was a pretty crude development hack and Gordon Murray told me that it was scrapped once it was no longer useful.
 

 

That McLaren F1 is chassis #074, which was second to last F1 road car chassis number issued. However, since many F1s were built out of sequence, it should be noted that it was not the second to last F1 that was produced.
 
You might notice that it has a rather unique placement of the side mirrors, on the A-pillar section of the doors. This happens to be a very rare option, with only 5 of the 64 F1 road cars produced wearing this style of mirror, and 2 of them were fitted as upgrades at customer's requests after the fact requiring a new set of doors be made. The actual mirror housing was sourced from the BMW Z1 in case you don't immediately recognize it.
 
Ralph's other F1 road car (yes, he has a pair) is also silver (chassis #055), and wears those special mirrors as well. The two cars do have different interiors which is the only way I can tell them apart. It's been said that the strengthening of the doors necessary to mount these mirrors made it a very expensive option - £25,000. Not sure if that was the price for adding them during production or after the fact, but as they say - "If you have to ask..."
 
Now if we step outside the garage, Ralph has something even more special to share.  
 



That is LM3 - one of the 5 production F1 LMs, and the only one in all of North America. Three others (LM1, LM4 & LM5) are in the collection of the Brunei Royal Family and the final production LM is in the ZAZ Museum in Nagoya, Japan. The McLaren factory also retains possession of the F1 LM prototype (XP1 LM), which you may have read a while back has been promised to Lewis Hamilton should he win a few more Formula One World Driver's Championship titles for McLaren. Lucky...
 
Ralph purchased his LM from a man in Massachusetts in late December of 2004 for a price somewhere just above $4M USD. Safe to say that it is worth considerably more than that price today given that a standard (albeit, somewhat special) F1 road car changed hands for the same price last October via RM Auctions in London. I'm quite sure his LM is not for sale at any price though.
 
He actually drives it too!!

 

The original US owner of LM3 was Frank Selldorff, and yes he does live in the Boston area. Prior to that, this LM was in the UK and was owned since new by David Morrison who actually used it in the Gumball Rally in 1999, logging almost 2,500 miles during that event across Europe. It is the only one of the five production F1 LMs that has changed hands from its original owner.
 
Frank still owns chassis #007, a black F1 road car, frequently associated with Turner Motorsports and seen here in old photos on their website. Contrary to a mildly popular rumor, Will Turner was never the owner of that car or the LM. That may have just been a story they told to satisfy nosey people that ask too many questions, as the cars were displayed at public events quite often.
 
At the same time he owned the LM, Frank also had a third F1 road car, chassis #068, which is silver. He sold that car in the summer of 2005 to a gentleman from Costa Rica who was kind enough to take me for a ride in it up in Monterey, CA before shipping it home. The car remained with him in Costa Rica for almost four years, being driven on local roads and at the track on occasion. Then, in the middle of 2009 it was sold again to a different owner back in the USA, in Massachusetts, oddly enough.
 
Its newest (and current) owner took the car along on a cross-country trip to Pebble Beach this summer with some friends along with other cars from his collection. The trip was chronicled in an article in Automobile Magazine titled "Supercars Across America" which can be read here. Quite a story!
 
Going back a bit, the Costa Rican owner actually had a pretty impressive glass walled garage built where he kept the F1. The purple neon tubes up in the soffet matched some small areas of purple leather found in the interior of #068, and on the matching fitted luggage that came with the F1. With the rest of the lights off at night, it made for what I think are some impressive photos. I'm kind of suprised that I don't recall seeing these pics in this thread yet as they have floated around the internet for quite a while. These first two are clickable for larger versions if you want.  
 





If you look very closely on the wall behind the car in a few shots, you will spot this McLaren F1 illustration by Martin Houlden (available here for a reasonable price) which I had framed for the owner as a thank you for his generosity following my encounter with his F1. Notice, I had the inner matting done in purple to keep with the theme.

 
 
I have a matching one, with a more traditional 'McLaren Orange' matting, on the wall behind me right now.
 
>8^)
ER  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

As said, the F1 is my specialty, but I really have a lot of other people who share equal credit in helping me amass all this knowledge over the years. Could never have done it on my own even with my level of desire.
 
There's also two problems for me to "keep going". One, I don't want to monopolize this great thread with F1 content, and two, I really don't have all that many pictures of F1s in people's garages, or the shots I do have are of garages that are just not worth looking at in the same company as what this thread intended to focus on.
 
Sometimes they are spotted in the wild, but most often they show up inside a museum, at a car show or auction, or momentarily sitting in a dealership's showroom somewhere in the world, and that stuff doesn't really qualify for this thread.
 
But let's go ahead and run out on the ones that I recall. Then maybe someone here will start a McLaren F1 thread in the other European car forum and we can do a sort of Q&A or whatever comes to mind I guess. In my 9 years of researching the F1s I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun sharing what I know, but there are still a few unanswered questions. Play stump P25 if you want - I don't care.
 
Moving on...
 

Don't bother clicking on the image above thinking it's a thumbnail - that's as big as it gets.  This dinky photo is actually rather special though, and some of you may have immediately recognized at least one of the reasons why, maybe two for the really sharp-eyed viewer.
 
The two men in that photo are Gordon Murray on the left and Horacio Pagani on the right. This photo is cropped from a scan of an article titled "Murray Meets Pagani" that Gordon wrote for EVO magazine, Feb 2006. In the article, Gordon reviewed the Pagani Zonda F coupe and gave it high marks.
 
The caption on this photo in the sidebar reads: "'And here's one I designed earlier...' Murray shows Pagani around the F1. Not an influence, says Pagani." <gasp> The sidebar text clarifies that a little more with this short paragraph: "But although the F1 wasn't a big influence, Gordon Murray himself has always been an idol of Horacio's, along with Colin Chapman, and the Argentinian engineer Oreste Berta. In fact, says Horacio, the first race car he designed was inspired by one of Murray's Brabham F1 cars."
 
The car in the garage behind them is also very, very special, as that is Gordon Murray's very own McLaren F1, prototype chassis XP3. I already mentioned this F1 was given as a present to him at the end of production, but not before it was given a full refit to bring it up as close to production spec as possible. I also mentioned that this is the earliest surviving McLaren F1 in existence as confirmed by Gordon, so it truly is a very special car. Figured that was worth repeating.
 
As for the garage - since that's why were all here - it looks a little cramped, but does have some stylish navy blue curtains and it appears there is a pinball machine to the right of the car. Also the wooden garage doors look sort of fancy. Sorry, I tried, but that's all I've got.
 
I won't be cruel and leave you with just that one little photo of XP3, so here are a pair shot inside the "Gordon Murray Design" studios, which for those who have not heard is his new company separate from McLaren, where he is currently working to develop several concepts including the T-25/T-27 city car you probably have read about. There's also reported to be another supercar effort on the drawing board, but it is still too early to think of placing a deposit.


Side Note: There were some minor design elements on the early prototypes that were altered or changed before or shortly after production began due to functionality, regulatory compliance or simple aesthetics. In the front view of XP3 above you can see one such detail.
 
The shape of the recessed turn indicators on XP3 is different than on a production F1 - gives the car a strange face. This detail changed during their development of the car from having nothing in this location on the early styling mockup (as the indicators were integrated with the mirrors), and then nothing at all on XP1, to having flush ones on XP2, then this style on XP3, XP4 and XP5. Eventually XP4 and XP5's noses would be changed to match the final production spec, so only XP3 retains this unique look, which according to one source, Gordon preferred.
 
Side by side comparo with a production F1 - I think I know which one I prefer, and sort of like Horacio's comment above, I am not influenced by Gordon's F1 in this particular instance.  

 
Finally - my impression here is of a proud but humble man having his photograph taken in the car he created. When I discovered this shot online back in August 2004 it became an instant favorite and remains one to this day even though my collection of images has grown considerably since then. This is Gordon inside XP3 (in a car park as the Brits say, not a garage - sorry again) and I figured we could end the XP3 section with it.

 
 
It was taken by a man visiting the UK from Gordon's home country of South Africa who had come to sell him a GSM Flamingo - a sort of odd looking car native to SA that Gordon had wanted for his collection. He snapped a few more pics, but this was the clear winner.
 
= = = = =
 
I'll try using a little less detail going forward from here.
 
This is chassis #011 in a pretty sweet looking garage - best one you will see for the rest of this post, in fact - located in Seattle, WA.


This special F1, and all that you see there (except the child maybe?) belong to John McCaw, a familiar name to those who know great car collections, or to people who follow the cellular wireless industry.
 
The car was originally painted Carbon (almost black) when new, and saw two refits from the factory at the hands of its second owner (McCaw is #3). The first refit added the option known as the "High Downforce Kit" which includes the nose and tail sections from the F1 GTR/LM as well as 18" OZ wheels in most cases and other little tweaks. It went back to the factory later to be resprayed in that brilliant and striking Metallic Blue paint, and to have the interior redone to it's present state. I only have the two garage shots, so I'll add this trio of shots taken inside an enclosed transporter. Hey, it's still inside, and maybe the transporter was backed into the garage, I don't know?



 
Pretend this is a fancy garage so I can share two more images, while I instead tell you this was the location for the Christie's Auction in London in June 2003 where McCaw purchased this stunning F1 for a price, with buyer's premium, that worked out to $1,073,665.25 USD at the time. He still had to pay to federalize it under our "Show or Display" exemption process, which is not cheap, but that was still an awesome deal for a car like this. Yes, I did just use the word "deal" for a car that cost $1 Million Dollars!  


BTW: Are all these lame "garage" related jokes getting old yet?

Here's LM3, from when Mr Selldorff owned it, seen here in the Turner Motorsports storage, ummm... garage. Warned you earlier some would not be pretty.

LM3 again, resting comfortably in the garage at Mr Selldorff's home. I think it shared this space with an M5 and an MINI Cooper S most of the time. Just pretend they are there.

= = = = = =
 
Older photos from 2004 when Clifford Meltzer of Los Gatos, CA owned F1 chassis #028. Don't look so hard for the F1 in the last two, it's not there. Beauty of a Vanquish in that amazing blue color though, and "I SPY" an under cover 288 GTO. Yellow Enzo in the back corner too.


As for F1 #028, it is now with Tom Price slightly north of the Bay Area. This is the only shot I have in what I presume could possibly be his garage? Anyone know for sure?  

 
Anyway, we'd really love to have more shots of his garage because it also contains a 250 GTO and an Aston DB4 GT Zagato among other precious items.
 
= = = = = =  
 

Chassis #038 inside the garage of its (by my current count) former, former, former owner, Dan Kennedy of Scottsdale, AZ.
 
Also have a set of photos from this guy Raj on the S2000 forums who's brother knew Dan and got him in to see #038 once.  


Dan took Raj for a ride in the car, but probably wouldn't have if he'd been around to see this happen.
 

When this photo was later shared with Dan because somone wanted to know what he thought of it, his response was:
 
"That is physicaly in my garage. You guys are frickin nuts! Who is that?"
 
So, I guess you could say 'Raj didn't leave as much of an impression on Dan as he'd left on Dan's F1.'
 
= = = = = =
 
This is chassis #067 in the garage of Elon Musk, one of the original founders of PayPal who was there when it sold to Ebay for $1BN. He'd already sold a previous company he started for over $300M prior to that, at the age of (...wait for it...) 28. After leaving PayPal he started Space-X, developing private rockets for business satellite launches, with plans to eventually colonize Mars. You'll also know his name from his involvement at Tesla Motors as their CEO. The EXIF image details on these pics say they are from 1999 which if true, would have been when Musk lived in the Palo Alto area. I think they are really from several years later - I mean how many people actually set the date and time on their cameras? He's lives in the LA area now, and finally sold the F1 in 2008 after being a fairly frequent user of it, even regularly commuting to work in it.  

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Peloton25/McLaren%20F1%20H/McLaren02.jpg[img]
[/img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/Peloton25/McLaren%20F1%20H/McLaren03.jpg[/img]

That guy is smiling, but I bet he resisted the temptation to lick the car when no one was looking.
 
Another little detail too - chassis #067 was the very first F1 road car I ever saw in person on the night of September 7th, 2003. I took this photo as I drove along next to it, which some people claim they really like.  

 
I tell those people "Sure, if grainy, blury, under exposed and awkwardly cropped shots of the F1 are your thing, then it is great!" But perhaps it is because there really aren't many other shots of an F1 driving at night? It is somewhat unique in that sense. The other shots I took of it in the dark were worse.
 
This car's story takes a sad turn though, as in the hands of this F1s new owner on June 1st, 2009 it caught fire while driving in Santa Rosa, CA and was severely burned at the rear before fire fighters could get there and put it out. The story was everywhere on the web, and I am sure most of you have seen the carnage photos. If not Google will have to be your friend as they are not going to ruin this beautiful thread.
 

I don't know yet if the car is able to be repaired by McLaren, or how that effort is progressing. I really do hope it does get rebuilt, especially for the car's current owner who was pretty upset over the incident as I am sure you can imagine.
 
Anyway, the focus here is supposed to be on garages and I keep getting off on tangents - apologies.
 
We'll finish up for now at least with some photos of the excellent garage of everyone's favorite car guy - Jay Leno. I know a few images were posted here earlier in the thread and a link to his website, but they weren't these.
 
For starters, Jay used to keep his own McLaren F1, chassis #015, in a giant bubble and here's the proof!