Rowan Atkinson's twice-wrecked McLaren on sale for $12M

Rowan Atkinson's twice-wrecked McLaren on sale for $12M

Published Jan. 28, 2015 1:53 p.m. ET
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Mr. Bean has enough trouble doing simple tasks, like cooking a turkey.

Controlling a 627-horsepower McLaren F1 capable of reaching 241 mph? Now that’s a whole different story.

Famed British comedian Rowan Atkinson bought a purple McLaren F1 in 1997 for around $800K. Since then, he has crashed the supercar on two occasions (the second of which resulted in a $1 million insurance claim) and is now selling it for $12 million through Taylor and Crawley. And for the record, it has over 41,000 miles.

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“Look at a modern supercar of comparable performance and it will be vast, heavy and offer little or no space for your luggage,” Atkinson told The Telegraph. “By comparison, the McLaren F1 is tiny, yet it will seat three, store enough for you all to go on holiday and still finds space for a proper, normally aspirated 6.1-liter V12 engine. And it weighs the same as a shopping car. Nothing has ever been designed before or since with such imagination and clarity of thought.

“The whole point of the car, the thing no one ever writes about, is you don’t need to go to the Stelvio Pass or the Nurburgring to enjoy it. It’s so quiet, so comfortable that you can use it, and enjoy it, on any journey. Most of the miles I have done it in are journeys you might do in any other car: going to Sainsburys [a British supermarket chain] or doing the school run.”

Video by Shmee150

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