A 1996 McLaren F1 GTR sold for $34,655,000 at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction on August 15, setting a new public auction record for both the McLaren marque and for British-built cars. Chassis 10R crossed the block as Lot 328 against a published guide of “value in excess of $35,000,000,” finishing just under that figure.
The result displaces the previous marque record of $25 million, set by a 1994 McLaren F1, chassis 014, at RM Sotheby’s Abu Dhabi sale in 2025. Before that, the benchmark was the $20,465,000 paid for a 242-mile 1995 F1 at Gooding’s Pebble Beach sale in 2021. The last F1 GTR to sell at public auction brought $5,280,000 at Gooding Scottsdale in 2014.
The McLaren was not the top lot of the sale. That went to the 2026 Ferrari Luce Tailor Made, chassis 0, which sold as a charity lot without reserve and with the buyer’s premium waived for $40 million against a presale estimate in excess of $1.1 million, with proceeds going to The Ferrari Foundation. RM Sotheby’s ran 199 lots across August 13 to 15 at the Portola Hotel and Monterey Conference Center.
Chassis 10R left McLaren’s Woking works in December 1995 as the first car built to F1 GTR 1996 specification, of which nine were produced. It is one of two short-tail GTR prototypes retained by the factory, the other being chassis 01R, which won the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans outright under the Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing banner. RM Sotheby’s describes 10R as the only F1 GTR to wear a factory-created livery, a Blood Red finish with yellow “96 GTR” graphics that produced the car’s Pop Art F1 nickname.
The 1996 specification was developed to answer purpose-built competition from cars including the Porsche 911 GT1. Changes included bodywork extensions front and rear, a more aggressive front splitter for added downforce, and a gearbox with a magnesium housing and heavy duty internals. RM Sotheby’s puts the total weight reduction at 84 pounds (38 kg) compared with the 1995 car, and describes the 1996 variant as the fastest of all F1 GTRs, quicker than the 1997 long-tail.
Retained by McLaren as a development and promotional car, 10R ran winter testing at Magny-Cours with drivers including 1995 Le Mans winner JJ Lehto, and appeared at rounds of the BPR Global GT Series. In April 1996 it completed 12 hours of testing ahead of Le Mans, then went to the Circuit de la Sarthe for pre-qualifying in plain Blood Red with graphite wheels, run by Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing and driven by McLaren works driver David Brabham. It ranked eighth in class and 20th overall in that session. Sister car 11R contested the race itself.
McLaren converted 10R for road use and registered it as K40 MCL in 1999, the same year the car went to Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. It was among the earliest of an estimated 16 F1 GTRs converted for the road. Further work was carried out by Paul Lanzante, who ran the Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing team to victory at Le Mans in 1995, and later by his son Dean at Lanzante Limited.
The car was displayed at Rétromobile in 2007 and tested by Autocar in 2009, after which a journalist crashed it, prompting a full restoration by Dean Lanzante. A second restoration followed a 2017 incident at the 75th Goodwood Members’ Meeting, where Mason left the track during a GT1 demonstration and struck a tire wall. Its most recent Goodwood appearance came at the 2022 Festival of Speed. Mason owned the car for 25 years before selling it privately in spring 2024 to the consignor.
