Yahoo Autos Street-Legal McLaren P1 Smashes Nurburgring Record
Nurburging lap records continue to be smashed. The most recent record holder, the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, set a blistering 6:52.01 lap in March, deposing the street-legal record long held by the Porsche 918 Spyder. Now, there's a new king: The McLaren P1 LM, a track-only hypercar made street legal by aftermarket firm Lanzante Motorsport. With Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack behind the wheel, it beat the Performante's lap record by nearly nine seconds.
Of course, caveats apply. Lanzante isn't a car manufacturer in the same vein as Lamborghini, McLaren, or Porsche. The company took the track-only P1 GTR - which McLaren never officially timed at the 'Ring - and modified it to street-legal spec for a select group of buyers in the U.S., Japan, U.K., and the UAE. Previously, the Lanzante-modified P1 LM became the fastest street-legal car to climb the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. With 986 horsepower from a twin-turbo V8 with hybrid assist, it's no surprise the thing is quick.
Lanzante promised to bring the P1 to the 'Ring to set a lap time, and now we've got video of the record-setting lap. It's astonishingly quick, riding on street-legal but custom made Pirelli Trofeo tires of "a specific size and compound." And while it's not quite apples-to-apples to compare an aftermarket-modified hypercar to a factory-stock production vehicle, one thing is for certain: This is one hell of a lap.
Perhaps it's more appropriate to compare the Lanzante-modified McLaren to the NIO EP9, an all-electric supercar that lapped the 'Ring in 6:45.9 (watch the video here). It's street-legal in Europe (but not the U.S.), though with only seven built so far and a price tag of nearly $1.5 million, it's not exactly a "production car." Still, Lanzante's McLaren beat the NIO by more than two seconds.
While Lanzante's effort was not officially backed by McLaren, this isn't the tuner's first time tracking one of the British automaker's vehicles: Lanzante campaigned the "semi-works" McLaren F1 GTR that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.
As for the P1 LM's streetability? Lanzante says that, after the lap record was set, the car was driven all the way from the Nurburgring to the company's home in the U.K. Sadly, you probably won't be able to buy one for yourself: Only five examples were built, and they've all been sold already.
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