In the past few years, car enthusiasts have been comparing a Ferrari 250 GTO and a Mclaren F1. This may be unthinkable when the car was released in the mid 1990s and even when it won Le Mans in 1995. However, the dramatic rise in its value of more than $20 million has raised a valid point in the claim of being the best supercar of all time. Morever, the Mclaren F1 has overtaken the valuation of iconic Ferraris such as the Ferrari 250 SWB and other notable supercars including the Bugatti Veyron. This may be attributed to many factors such as low production number (106), Le Mans winner, fastest naturally aspirated car, central sitting position, among others. Moreover, in my opinion the F1 is still the best Mclaren road car beating newer cars including the P1 and Senna.
When I became aware of the Autobarn Mclaren models in 2010, I was hesistant to start a new line in my collection. At that time, I was focused on BBR Ferrari F1 Schumacher models. In addition, the increasing number of Autobarn Mclaren F1 variants will make it quite expensive to complete. Without doubt there were a lot of interesting Mclaren F1 model liveries such as the Ueno Clinic, Fina, Marlboro, West, Gulf, Lark and others. If I buy one, it would lead to another purchase that would result to having no funds for my main line (BBR F1s). For this reason, I decided to buy just one Mclaren F1 Papaya Orange. Little did I know that this particular model would be extremely hard to find because of its limited production of just 50 pieces. Not until recently I bought one from a collector in UK.
The quality of Autobarn (AB) Mclaren F1s is at the level of BBR which is not surprising because I believe MR produced AB models. After all these years, the condition of the paint and parts are still good. Not bad for an almost 20 years old model! As much as I like this model, in the near future I'm thinking of commissioning a master builder to build me another Orange crusher for more details and the UENO clinic Le Mans winner version. Until then, I'll enjoy this model and continue to hunt for other AB F1 models.
