Rowan Atkinson’s McLaren F1 cost nearly £1 million to fix

Rowan Atkinson pranged his McLaren F1 in 2011 in Cambridgeshire and now, after a repair bill of £910,00, it’s back.

We all know what a petrolhead Black Adder and Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson is, and most of the car world knows he owns a McLaren F1, and that he had a nasty accident in it in 2011.

Rowan lost control of his F1 in damp and unpleasant conditions on the A605 near Peterborough and ended up going backwards in to a tree. Unpleasant, no doubt, but Rowan was saved from serious injury (apart from a damaged shoulder) by the Mac’s carbon fibre tub.

Rowan seems to have mended long ago, but the repairs to the F1 have taken rather longer.

The McLaren F1 (pictured above) has been at McLaren’s Woking facility since the accident in April 2011, and is only now back in Rowan’s hands after a repair bill that hit £910,000.

That seems a huge bill for an insurance company to pick up, especially as the F1 cost £640,000 when new and is now nearly 20 years old. But that just shows how much the McLaren F1 is now worth.

The current asking price for a decent F1 is nearing £5 million, so the option of finding one of the 64 F1s built to replace Rowan’s Mac was not an option for his insurers. So instead, McLaren’s worker ants have spent much time and much effort putting his Mac back together again.

All’s well that ends well, although we do wonder how much Rowan’s insurance for the McLaren F1 has gone up after this little adventure.

McLaren F1 Photo Gallery

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Source: Classic & Sports Car Magazine