The only McLaren F1 technician in the US

[Jeff V.]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture ... h-america/

This guy is the only person in the US certified to work on the F1. He works on other McLarens too, including the P1. What a job that must be....

[Duck Vader]

Wow.

[DCIV]

Wonder how much that slab of grannit cost?


Coop

[Jeff V.]

More than you can afford, pal.

McLaren

[DCIV]

Yeah. My fav car growing up was the Lamborghini diablo VT, until this mclaren f1 came out. This is a really cool job.


Coop

[Jeff V.]

I think a Diablo VT Roadster would still be near the top of my "won the lottery" list. I thought about building a kit version, but I just couldn't live with the idea of driving a fraud, no matter how well it was made.

[DCIV]

The roadster didn't have awd did it? I think that's what I loved about the VT and what made me ultimately pick a Vr4. But when the mclearen can do 231mph....and lets not forget that was way back in early 2000's? Why did it take so long for the veryon to beat it? Just seems like we weren't afraid of things a long time ago, and now we are.


Coop

[mjannusch]

If I remember right, all the Roadsters were VT.

Damn, now this reminded me that I drooled over those back in the day. The Spyder was about as close as I could get to one then. Hmmmm, maybe I could pull one off now.

[Jeff V.]

VT was their name for AWD, so yeah, there was an AWD roadster.

http://www.lambocars.com/diablo/diablo_vt_roadster.html
http://www.lambocars.com/diablo/diablo_ ... y1999.html

[Jeff V.]

HHNGNN :d rool: https://www.carsforsale.com/vehicle/details/35206551

[Chris GTO TT]

A friend of mine from our local weekly Subaru meets was recruited to go work for McLarens a few years ago. They sent him to England multiple times for training and after a few years living and working in LA he decided he wanted to come back to Nor-Cal. He still works on the P1 on occasion as the Porsche dealership he’s at has some sort of agreement with McLaren for services. He has shared pics of him basically splitting a 918 spyder in half to fix a recall issue.

He says it’s pretty cool sometimes, but really its just a job and still has a lot of the same issues techs at other dealership deal with. Only with richer and more demanding clients.

[quote=""DCIV""]The roadster didn't have awd did it? I think that's what I loved about the VT and what made me ultimately pick a Vr4. But when the mclearen can do 231mph....and lets not forget that was way back in early 2000's? Why did it take so long for the veryon to beat it? Just seems like we weren't afraid of things a long time ago, and now we are.


Coop[/quote]
A lot of it had to do with the fact a lot of companies just didn’t care for a long time. Also you had a lot of the effort in performance cars going towards working on downforce and the aerodynamics going in that direction. There were several years where MFG’s said they could easily beat the F1’s top speed if they sacrificed handling, aerodynamics, and gearing for it. With the rise of track day specials and super/hyper cars built and designed for ultimate handling they all decided to forgo top speed claims for better Nurburgring numbers. If you look at the cars which are beating the F1 for the most part they are dedicated straight line missiles.

[mjannusch]

$325,000? Okay, that makes it an easy decision to forget that whole idea... lol.

I'm not spending that kind of money on an old car, no matter how cool it is. A car just isn't worth that to me.

[DCIV]

Didn't they make a roadster that wasn't a VT? I just remember the old school days of reading car and driver front to back, and they had a roadster that wasn't awd and I felt they killed the Lamborghini that way.

Anyways, seems like they have held their values!


Coop

[Jeff V.]

$325,000? Okay, that makes it an easy decision to forget that whole idea... lol.

Cheapest one I found at a glance was a 91 for $175,000. I think they were well under 90 a few years ago, but now that all the Miuras and Countaches are bought up, the Diablo is the next one to start going up in value.

It makes me wonder what will happen to the Gallardo and Murcielago in the long term. The Gallardo was a 'mass produced' Lambo, and it shared a platform with the R8. The Murcielago didn't seem to be very popular or interesting. I found a couple examples of both for 100k or less, and they weren't salvage cars. I wonder where the bottom of the market will be for those, and if they'll ever climb back up.

Didn't they make a roadster that wasn't a VT?

Lamborghini planned an SV (RWD) roadster, but all the RWD cars were cancelled when VW/Audi took over.

http://www.lambocars.com/diablo/diablo_sv_roadster.html

One of the US importers actually converted a few VTs to the planned SV spec though. So some do exist, but they're aftermarket conversions.

[mjannusch]

There was never a Roadster SV, as far as I can remember. Just VT versions.

The Gallardo didn't really impress me that much. I'd rather just have an R8, frankly. Never been in a Murcielago... I'm guessing those will start climbing in value sooner than the Gallardo, as there aren't nearly as many around.

[Jeff V.]

I thought long and hard about saving some more money and buying an older R8. After my experience with my S5, the R8 doesn't intimidate me. But honestly, the R8 doesn't even have the toys my S5 has, let alone all the cool stuff the C7 has.

[DCIV]

There are two r8's in town. One is a lady driver. One is an older guy. Neither really drive their vehicles hard.


Coop

[Chris GTO TT]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]I thought long and hard about saving some more money and buying an older R8. After my experience with my S5, the R8 doesn't intimidate me. But honestly, the R8 doesn't even have the toys my S5 has, let alone all the cool stuff the C7 has.[/quote]

That’s kinda how I feel with cars now.

[Duck Vader]

I have always had a soft spot for Lambos. My first car poster was one.

[aaronatstate]

[quote=""DCIV""]The roadster didn't have awd did it? I think that's what I loved about the VT and what made me ultimately pick a Vr4. But when the mclearen can do 231mph....and lets not forget that was way back in early 2000's? Why did it take so long for the veryon to beat it? Just seems like we weren't afraid of things a long time ago, and now we are.


Coop[/quote]

F1s came out in the mid 90s...which is even crazier!