The Sun Valley Tour de Force usually gathers a large amount of rare, high dollar supercars and a select few hypercars. This year however, was one of the biggest years for the car spotters like myself that flock to this event. Parked out front of the Sun Valley Resort was this road going version of an already rare Mclaren, the P1GTR. Mclaren were already well under way into making the 375 units of the monstrous P1 but in 2014 they unveiled their P1GTR concept at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.
With only 40 being built,the GTR boasted an even more stripped down (losing 110lb) and more powerful (83hp increase) over the P1. Along with the addition of more aero including the massive fixed DRS capable wing, more track oriented suspension, and an exclusive exhaust setup. This gave the GTR a 0-60mph time under 3 seconds, and a cornering force over 1.5G's. At first the P1GTR was only offered to customers who already purchased a P1. The GTR price tag of 1.9 million British pounds (2.4 million USD) included a worldwide trackday series at 6 different F1 tracks around the world. This included a crew to maintain the car, training for the driver, and a B&B to stay at while you're there. Mclaren later offered an option to buy the car for a mere 1.3 million British pounds (1.7 million USD) that gave you the car without the track day experience. As for a road legal version, that was taken care of by a small company from England.
The people behind why this car isn't seen only on a track is the quite unknown Lanzante Limited. Lanzante Limited (or Motorsport) founded by Paul Lanzante in late 1970's began as a company specializing in the restoration and servicing of classic cars in their workshops based out of Petersfield, Hampshire, and England. Ran now by his son Dean Lanzante the company started racing less in the historic category and more into the modern era of touring car championships back in the mid ninties. In 1995 Lanzante had entered their Porsche 911 turbo, in a GT3 trim level for the BPR Global GT series. At the same time, the Mclaren F1 GTR had been debuting in the same series as well as the 24 Hours of LeMans.
McLaren's developmental car was loaned to an entry backed by sponsors Kokusai Kaihatsu UK, while Lanzante was chosen to organize and run the team, which incorporated a small number of McLaren employees, including McLaren associates and experienced endurance engineers. Lanzante's McLaren was the fastest of the manufacturers in qualifying, and obtained the race lead after other McLarens suffered issues. The Kokusai Kaihatsu McLaren went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans by a one lap margin, making the McLaren the first car and Lanzante the first team to win on debut at Le Mans. In 1996 Lanzante purchased their own F1GTR to compete in more Le Mans races along with the British GT Championship.
Having a long background with track spec Mclaren's Lanzante Limited began to take on these road legal conversions in late 2015 after most of the P1GTR's had been built. This specific car has been given a LARK livery as a homage to the F1GTR that dawned the same scheme. The original livery which inspired the design was on the F1 GTR # 13R. It raced alongside a sister car, # 04R in the All Japan GT Championship series in 1996. The # 13R car claimed 3 victories with it's sister car adding another ensuring the McLaren duo dominated the 6-race event. This car was up for sale in January of 2018 from an English collector who also owned a road going F1GTR with the same livery.
The car has made it's way to America and is currently registered in Montana. For those who don't know, a lot of supercar owners register their cars in Montana and for good reason, but I'll get into that in another post. The owner of the car was at the event but I was hard pressed to find out who exactly it was however it came out with a lot of the Mclaren's from the Beverly Hills dealership. It was truly a wonderful thing to find this very rare vehicle, parked outside a resort in a cozy ski town in Idaho. More coverage of the Sun Valley Tour de Force will be coming very shortly. Josh Brown
@luckyclub.us No Extras this time! Enjoy the article above!