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McLaren taunts us with two supercars we can't have

Most of the supercars we're seeing at the Geneva Motor Show are well beyond our reach, but they're usually obtainable for a truckload of cash. Not the P1 or 675LT Spider. Both are sold out. Alongside the new 570GT, McLaren arrived at the Geneva Palexpo this year with two supercars that are entirely sold out. Chief among them is the P1 that McLaren Special Operations has completely redone in bare carbon fiber – albeit lacquered in blue and fitted with a 24-karat gold heatshield, just like on the original McLaren F1. Of course, since the P1 is all sold out, we can't have one, but MSO is still catering to the existing owners by offering this sort of upgrades. Joining it is the 675LT Spider which – like the P1 – is also completely sold out. Fans of Woking's finest will recall that the 675LT Spider followed the coupe, which was in turn based on the same underpinnings as the 650S and the 12C before it in McLaren's mid-level Super Series. As with the 675LT coupe, the Spider packs a more powerful version of the company's 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8, propelling it from a standstill to 62 miles per hour in just 2.9 seconds. Related Video:

Top Gear drag races VW Golf R against McLaren 675LT and Porsche 911

Top Gear's latest quarter-mile drag race in the collects three very different performance vehicles: the 296-horsepower Volkswagen Golf R, 424-hp Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, and 666-hp McLaren 675LT. While each of these cars sit near the top of their segment, they each come from totally different rungs of the sports car price ladder. Spoiler alert, the Golf R doesn't win. But the final results illustrate the diminishing returns of price and performance. For example, the McLaren is only about a second quicker than the Porsche to 60 miles per hour, but the 675LT costs over 2.5 times more that the GTS. Related Video:

Watch the McLaren F1's original record-setting top-speed run

When it was released in the early 1990s, the McLaren F1 was a car so full of superlatives that, even today, few cars come close to matching it. The F1 is arguably the greatest car that was or ever will be built, and it's unlikely we'll ever see another road-going car with as much raw and unfettered power and presence as the F1. The most famous metric of all, the car's official top speed of 240.1 mph, was achieved in 1998, deep in the forests of Germany with a former McLaren driver and 24 Hours of Le Mans winner behind the wheel. McLaren just released previously unseen footage of the run, which took place at the Ehra-Lessien proving ground. Aside from watching a digital speedometer slowly creep up to 391 km/h, the best part is the commentary from driver Andy Wallace. You'll have to watch the video for yourself, but it's wonderful hearing Wallace's mixture of excitement and fear as the car creeps ever fast. Pay particularly close attention to his hands, as even the mighty McLaren can't stay cool and calm at 220-plus mph. The car actually hits 242.9 mph in one run, but records take the average of two runs in opposite directions. The team's excitement can be felt through the screen, but the video leaves you with a twinge of sadness knowing that something so pure, so focused, and so wholly and completely uncompromised will likely never be seen again. Related Video: News Source: YouTube via The DriveImage Credit: McLaren McLaren Coupe Performance Supercars Videos top speed