When you're getting your vehicle serviced, you may have to say goodbye to it for a few days. If that's the case, we hope you have the fortune of receiving a loaner vehicle from the dealership. This is your new friend for a few days, and it should be adequate enough to get you around until you're back in the seat of your main machine. If you have a McLaren F1 that needs its engine rebuilt, you may suffer no such nonsense as vehicle downtime.

When it's time to bring your multi-million dollar road car in for engine-out servicing, the folks at Woking have a spare engine waiting for its chance to come out and play. MSO maintains a handful of spare engines, and one of those is used as a loaner. Your original engine goes in to get its proper care and you can continue to enjoy your F1.

Once the work on your engine is complete, you head back in to the shop and your original engine is swapped back into its home. Now you have a fresh BMW V-12 to go play with once more.

Of course, it's not all as easy as that, and it doesn't apply to the lucky few who own the cars in the U.S. However, McLaren will work with British and other European owners who may have had an engine failure and need their cars for an important road rally or other pressing event. Most U.S. customers will have to send their cars all the way to Woking to get the work done.

If other exclusive exotic car manufacturers don't already offer this service, perhaps we might see a few extra engines run down the production line in the near future. After all, you've paid a hefty price to enjoy your pride and joy. McLaren knows you want to continue driving it, and you can do just that even when your original engine needs a full rebuild.

RM Sotheby’s has been known to auction off some extremely rare vehicles. And that’s just what we have here. But this one’s not crossing the auction block. Instead it’s being offered by the auctioneer’s new Private Sales department, which means any prospective buyer won’t have to contend with rival bidders to take it home – just pay the (assuredly huge) asking price.


It’s a McLaren F1, but not just “any” McLaren F1. This is an LM-Specification example, the first of just two made by McLaren Special Operations. It’s a road car, but was stripped down to near-race-spec and fitted with the competition-type engine. It also features the more extreme “extra high downforce package,” but retains the road car’s interior treatments, and even has a sat-nav system fitted – which, needless to say, isn’t something you’d find in most racers.

This isn’t the first time that RM Sotheby’s has handled this specific car. It previously auctioned it off three years ago in Monterey, where it sold for a mammoth $13.7 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’d be more than $14 million in today’s money. That was also enough to make it the most expensive British car ever sold at auction up to that point, though the sum has since been eclipsed by another McLaren F1 that Bonhams sold at the same event just last year for $15.6 million, by a Jaguar D-Typethat RM sold (also in Monterey) two years ago for nearly $22 million, and by an Aston Martin DBR1(also sold by RM in Monterey last year) for over $22.5 million.

Though RM Sotheby’s Private Sales division hasn’t disclosed how much the current owner is asking for the car this time around, we’d expect it to go for at least as much as it went for at auction in 2015.

If the McLaren isn’t your particular cup of English Breakfast tea, RM Sotheby’s new Private Sales department also has an award-winning 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680 S Torpedo Sport available for $7 million, a 1960 MB 300 SL roadster for $1.3 million, a 2003 Aston Martin DB AR1 Zagato for $395k, and a 1930 Bentley Speed Six, an alloy-bodied ’66 Ferrari 275 GTB, and ’61 Ferrari 400 Superamerica Aerodinamico all listed with prices undisclosed.

Jay Leno's restoration team is busier than ever, and won't get intimidated by a McLaren F1 engine-out service either. This is the V12, like you've never heard it before.

Keeping Jay Leno's highly eclectic car collection running is a never ending job, but the team of expects at his garage seems to have no problem with doing the impossible. Leno's video updates don't disappoint either, but this summer got even more exciting with the McLaren F1 being on the to do list. As Leno puts it, "it's probably the scariest car to work on, and certainly the most expensive."

Then again, they have the factory Facom toolkit, so what could go wrong?

Of course the fact that the F1s need an engine-out service every five years because of their dissolving fuel cells is just the icing on the cake. This year, the garage's projects list starts with a 1959 Chrysler Imperial that started out as a standard disc brake conversion, only to end up being a full restoration. New paint, new panels, fresh chrome all around, with a rebuilt dash and everything that turned a Chrysler into an Imperial.

Speaking of new panels, Leno's team also had to cast a radiator shell for his 1916 Revere, just before rebuilding its Rochester-Duesenberg 'walking-beam' engine and gearbox. Fellow expert Jim's personal Lotus Cortina is just about ready to become the world's nicest Lotus Cortina, while Leno's 1914 Detroit Electric will need a steering rack upgrade once its 50 horsepower motor gets connected to lithium-ion batteries. Needless to say, this horseless carriage got a new wooden body and wheels as well.

But while beating most off the line with a 1914 Detroit Electric is fun, Leno's true passion lies in pre-war aero specials, which are literally tons of fun.

There's his "ran when parked" Rabbit 11. Clocked at Brooklands at 113 miles per hour in 1921, this beast is a 1908 Mercedes chassis with a 1913 18.8-liter plane engine. Master fabricator Jimmy has been busy replacing its steel water jackets with custom brass ones for years, while this beast also received Lincoln axles with hidden disc brakes at the front. As well as a modern clutch.

Equally impressive is the Merlin V12-powered Rolls-Royce, which is a 27-liter affair built on a 1934 P2 chassis, with Weber carburetors and a six-speed Dodge truck transmission. It will shift alright. Next to the Rolls is a new acquisition, a 1922 Wills Sainte Claire. Engineered by Ford chief designer, metallurgist and father of the Blue Oval logo Childe Harold Wills, this 65 horsepower OHC aluminum block V8-powered car cost ten times as much as a Model T, and twice as much as a house in its day. No wonder why Leno hadn't seen one running yet.

Bikes! He also has bikes! And how about the best in the world from 1925? Namely, the Super Sports 100 Brough Superior, a 55 horsepower, 3-speed bike guaranteed to do 110mph when most couldn't break 55. Hand-built for speed, this two-wheeler is something else.

Then, there's the F1. Despite Gordon Murray's best effort to create the ultimate road car, McLaren's first production model has certain racing components that need regular servicing with the V12 dragged out. Like the fuel cell, which needs replacing every five years.

Now, most people would ship their F1s back to McLaren Special Operations at Woking, or to an unmarked warehouse in Philadelphia so Kevin Hines can do his magic. But to Jay Leno's crew, the $20+ million F1 is just another car. A familiar collection of bolts, wires, pipes, metal and carbon, with a glorious sound without the mufflers on. Talk about a rare treat:

Early this year, McLaren F1 chassis #073 was sold by RM Sotheby's through its new Private Sales division. If you missed the chance to buy that one, you're in luck—the auction house is selling another F1, chassis #014. But act quickly. It's on display in Monterey right now, and F1s have a habit of not staying for sale long.

This car notably has McLaren's high-downforce kit, which features a big wing and more prominent splitter inspired by the Le Mans-winning F1 GTR. The high-downforce kit was a factory option for the late-production F1, but as this particular car was built in 1994, it was likely added later by McLaren.

According to ultimatecarpage.com, this F1 was imported to the US in 2002 in its original shade of yellow. It was sold at RM's Monterey auction in 2006 for a little under $2 million, ending up in the hands of a New York collector who didn't mind the car getting exercised as you can see in the video below.

You've also seen this car featured at Road & Track. When we met Kevin Hines, the only McLaren F1 tech in North America, F1 #014 was in for a service with its engine removed.

McLaren only built 106 examples of the F1, 64 of which are street cars like this one. That rarity, combined with the F1's general brilliance makes this one of the hottest collector cars at the moment. And one of the most expensive—RM Sotheby's is asking $22 million for this one. During Monterey Car Week last year, Bonhams auctioned an F1 for $15.6 million, making it the most expensive F1 publicly sold. It's likely that others have sold privately for more.

Like the one sold last year, #014 is particularly appealing as it's able to be registered in the US, which isn't the case with all F1s.