McLaren 675LT gets classic F1 GTR skin

KUALA LUMPUR: McLaren is known to build beautiful beasts with no dearth of performance and magnificent cuts. However, some buyers don’t get enough and demand unique inclusions in their car. Well, obviously their demand is backed by loads of cash and a perfect vision of what they desire. Recently, company’s customisation wing, McLaren Special Operation, commonly known as MOS was handed over a task to transform the 675LT in F1 GTR fashion.

Sound interesting, right? Before going any further with all what MOS did with the 675LT, here’s a heads-up on the iconic race car. It all began in 1995 when McLaren tasted success in the sports car racing arena with the F1 GTR. With changing times and cars like Porsche 911 GT1, McLaren was forced to make significant changes in GTR, thus making it championship ready. As a result, the company enhanced the F1 GTR in every way possible and also gave it a stretched tail end. And that’s the reason why the F1 GTR earned the nickname ‘Longtail’. Though, it didn’t win the championship but gave a fierce competition to the runners.

Coming back to the present scenario, a buyer demand modern day version of the Longtail channelled in the 675LT. So, MOS took the opportunity and delivered the car you can see in the pictures. A total of 1000-hours were spent to create this beauty, that’ll now run on roads and pay homage to the legend.

It took almost 800-hours to paint and airbrush the car in the hues (black, blue and orange) resembling that of the Longtail. The theme is continued on exterior elements via upgraded roof scoop, Dayglo Orange 20-inch alloy wheels, and carbon fibre air intake.

On the inside too, the aura flatter with inclusions like Carbon Black Alcantara wrapped racing seats, orange sill badges, Gulf Bule handling and powertrain knobs, and lastly Gulf Orange start button, seat belts, and air vent bezels. Giving the car a personalised feel, owner's initials ‘TTJ’ (Tunku Temenggong Johor, the Johor prince) is embossed on the sill badges and seat upholstery.

On the transformation, MOS Managing Director, Ansar Ali, said, “Transforming the existing car from its original single colour paintwork to a tribute to the McLaren F1 GTR ‘Longtail’ in Gulf Racing livery was incredibly demanding in its own right, but was only part of the brief. We also replaced numerous standard 675LT components with MSO parts and further personalised the car to identify it with its owner.”

Under the bonnet, the TTJ’s 675LT houses a 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 mill generating a maximum power of 675 PS along with a peak torque of 700 Nm. This mill is mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and touches the 100 kmph mark in 2.9 seconds.

Cheers to the Johor royal family and their undying passion for automobiles that we got to see the McLaren 675LT in this unique fashion.