It’s no wonder that the McLaren P1 was one of the three cars in the so-called Holy Trinity of supercars of the early 2010s. The beastly car was the spiritual successor to the famed F1. It was one of the first hybrid supercars, boasting an extra 177 horsepower on top of the 727 that it made from its 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8.
One of the rarest iterations of the P1 was the Carbon Series. Now, one of the only five ever created is up for sale, with an asking price of around $3.1 million.
Carbon Series Was An Ultra-Exclusive After-Sale Upgrade Years Down The Line
We don’t actually know all that much about the Carbon Series of the McLaren P1. McLaren only built 375 copies of the P1, and just five of them were converted for this series. Each one is based on an already completed car, brought back to the factory by its owner. The plan was to make 20, but that was pulled back to the ultra-small five-unit total.
McLaren Special Operations, the company’s customization arm, designed the kit. While all P1s had carbon fiber bodies and chassis, the Carbon Series took it one step further. Instead of painted, they offered exposed-weave carbon. Exposed weave is far more difficult to mass-produce than parts made for paint, because they have to be not just structurally perfect but aesthetically flawless. The new panel added at least $200,000 to the price tag, and McLaren offered at least one of the five with a colored clearcoat. The one it revealed at Geneva in 2016 was Lio Blue.
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Other MSO upgrades to that Carbon Series car included gloss black wheels and a 24-karat gold heat shield like the F1. The cabin was retrimmed with carbon black Alcantara and blue contrast stitching.
What makes this car special isn’t that it has 903 hp, or that it can achieve 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds, or that it can do more than 200 mph. It’s not even that it’s one of the just five Carbon Series cars thought to exist.
Only 54 Miles Make This Macca Like New
It’s that this car only has delivery miles on the odometer. A quick look shows that despite it being sold and sent back to the factory for a makeover in 2016, the car has covered just 54 miles since it left Woking in 2011.
Why would you buy a car like this just to let it sit? Well, it is a work of art, but it seems a shame not to drive a car known for being one of the best performance cars ever created.
This low-mile car even has some upgrades despite (or maybe because of) sitting around. A few years ago, McLaren announced a new high-performance second-generation battery for the P1. The new pack trimmed 124 pounds from the original 234-lb battery, delivering even better handling and acceleration.
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The upgraded pack delivered better acceleration, too, helping trim 0.4 seconds from the 16.5-second 0-186 mph run, though outputs remained unchanged. The new upgrade had a lower capacity, dropping electric range from 7.5 miles down to just 1.9. The cost of the new pack was $156,700, and it came with a new six-year warranty.
This car is for sale in Dubai. Which explains the 32 degrees Celsius (90°F) temperature on the dash of the P1, even though it’s parked inside. The asking price for this almost undriven bit of British engineering is AED 11,499,995. Or $3.1 million in USD.
Source: F1rst Motors via The Supercar Blog
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