Well, not always free but see below and you’ll see its not far off!

We had a very simple motivation for getting into McLaren sales – get properly prepared cars into the market to try and stem the tide of poor McLarens out there. Our view was that we can improve the reputation of the cars by getting well prepared cars into the market place albeit one car at a time.

Well, we are nearly 3 years into car sales and we have now supplied nearly 200 McLarens to new owners to great success and in that group of new owners we have now sold and then re-sold multiple McLarens to the next owner, ie we supplied a McLaren to one owner, who has then sold it through us to a new owner so we thought we would share this data.

In total we have sold and then re-sold 9 McLarens to multiple owners and below is the full data for these cars including how many miles each has been used, time of ownership and costs to prepare for re-sale and of course the purchase and subsequent sales price.

The cars have all been owned for different periods, are different models, different mileages so averaging the data isnt really very reflective in terms of data but taking that into account the numbers are pretty good. Its an average £4400 in costs, over 2 years and 5,000 miles. Now obviously there are servicing costs, fuel and wear and tear to consider which will be different for each car but saying that there are some stand out successes that decry the idea that running a McLaren is a money pit.

Take a look at Volcano Yellow 605 Spider. The owner of that car paid £99,500 for the car from us, then did 16,000 miles in 9 months, we then sold it for him for £97,500 and it cost him £5,000. There is our sales fee of course, which is £6,000 so its not all good news but even taking that into account £11,000 in total costs for 16,000 miles in a McLaren is an example that if you buy the right car and sell through the right people owning a McLaren is not a financial black hole.

As another example, look at the Orange 720 coupe, we sold it to the owner for £129,000, 9 months later we sell it for him for £139,000 and after preparation costs of £5,000 he took a £5,000 profit. Again, include the sales fee and its a £1,000 loss to run a McLaren 720 for nearly a year, that includes servicing costs.

Or the purple 720 spider, sold to the owner for £169,000, we then sold it for him a year later for the same £169,000 and it cost £6600 to own and that included a full set of tyres at £1200.

So owning a a McLaren is NOT a nightmare, indeed these cars show that if you buy the right car, through the right people, who know how to prepare it to ensure its running costs are low then you can have fun with the car and sell it on (again through the right people) and not lose your shirt. Of course that also means that the right people is us, data like this proves it.