After succeeding with his first startup project, Elon Musk spent nearly a million USD to buy the McLaren F1 supercar.
In 1995, with a $28,000 loan from his father, Elon Musk and his younger brother Kimbal started a business with Zip2 – a project that provides map and phone directory services for online newspapers. In 1999, the two sold the company for $307 million and Elon Musk received $22 million.
According to CNN, he deducted $815,000 from the above amount to reward himself with a McLaren F1. He appeared excited on the day he received the car and was accompanied by his fiancée Justine Wilson.
“Three years before that, I had to shower at the fitness center and sleep on the office floor. Yet now, I own a supercar,” he told Time in 2021. According to Justine, the McLaren F1 deserves to be “million dollar car”.
Billionaire Elon Musk. Photo: Reuters
Musk’s “pet car” was designed by the legendary duo Peter Stevens and Gordon Murray and there are only 106 cars in the world. In particular, the V12 engine is manufactured by BMW and many parts are made of 24K gold. As the name suggests, the McLaren F1 has details inspired by Formula 1 racing cars, such as the driver’s position in the middle of the car.
Musk said he uses the supercar as his daily transportation, mainly around San Francisco and to Los Angeles. In the first year, he and MacLaren F1 covered a distance of 17,700 km. In an interview with PandoDaily in 2012, Musk admitted to damaging his car while driving Peter Theil, co-founder of PayPal, to an important appointment in 2000.
As the two walked on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, Thiel asked what the car could do. Musk replied, “Let’s see,” then pressed the accelerator, accelerated and changed lanes. The car with 627 horsepower, weighing about a ton, hit the embankment and flew into the air.
“It rotated a few more times before falling to the ground. The suspension was broken, the glass was broken and the front was damaged, but the chassis and engine were fine,” Musk said. While Thiel was shocked by the accident, Musk still smiled and said he had not purchased insurance for his supercar.
Musk’s McLaren F1 after an accident. Photo: Business Insider
Musk kept the car until 2007. At that time, he held the position of CEO of the electric car company Tesla, so regularly using the gas-guzzling supercar was no longer appropriate. The McLaren F1 was repaired and sold to a new owner living in California.
Even though it was sold, Musk still considers the car as the performance benchmark for Tesla products. In 2014, he claimed the Tesla Model S P85D could accelerate 0-100 km/h in 3.2 seconds similar to the McLaren F1. By 2016, the Model S P100D reduced acceleration time to 2.7 seconds.
