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  • The Rake

    FORGING THE FUTURE

    Oct 12, 2018 6 minutes

    by wei koh

    I kid you not. At 100mph (or 160km/h in the metric system) the GTR version of the McLaren F1 — the 25-year-old game-changing sports car designed by the iconoclast Gordon Murray — generates so much downforce that it could drive upside down across your ceiling. It is also incredibly light, due to McLaren’s pioneering use of carbon fibre, and has a raceready central driving seat and a naturally aspirated BMW V12 nestled in an engine bay lined with gold foil to help expel heat. All of this enabled the street-legal version to clock 240.1mph (388km/h), the highest speed ever recorded by a production car, in the 1990s. A fleet of racing F1s entered the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours and set an incredible record on the car’s debut, with the McLarens claiming first, third, fourth, fifth and 13th places.

    So it takes a hell of a lot to impress Ray Bellm, the racing driver who convinced Murray and McLaren boss Ron Dennis to create the competition GTR version of

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