2010 McLaren F1 20th Anniversary

McLaren F1 is celebrating its twentieth birthday. And to celebrate, McLaren invited owners out to Woking for a dinner at its Technology Center. The highlight of the get-together has to have been the 21-car F1 roundup, featuring the largest collection of F1s ever seen together.

The F1 is a technological tour-de-force and a real triumph in terms of packaging and design. McLaren chairman (and anti-Bugatti spokesman) Ron Dennis was on-hand to express his own feelings about owning and driving the car. 

After conducting tests, racing or on road, it is supremely fast, agile and yet comfortable. Its styling is enduring and will never fade. The F1 remains one of McLaren's proudest achievements.

Over its twenty years on Earth, the F1 has spawned 72 road cars (64 F1s, 5 F1 LMs, and 3 F1 GTs), 28 racers (F1 GTRs), and 6 other prototypes. The F1 GTR took just three months to develop, and the 28 examples McLaren built were big time winners: the 1995 GT1 Championship and the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans (1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 13th places), both its debut seasons.

The five cars that finished at Le Mans were the inspiration for the five Papaya Orange F1 LMs, which get a "de-restricted engine" putting out 680 horsepower. A further competition version came in the form of the 1997 GTR with longer nose and tail sections for increased downforce.