When you invest seven figures in securing one of the most exotic, exclusive vehicles ever made, perhaps you just expect that the owner’s manual is going to be a work of art. I don’t know, I’ve never been in that position. Every owner’s manual I’ve ever had has ended up stuffed in a glovebox, pages greasy, creased, and torn.
This is the most beautiful owner’s manual you’ve ever seen
With the McLaren F1, mishandling the owner’s manual would be a crime — doubly so after you hear the amount of thought and effort that went into it. Mark Roberts, the man who hand-sketched the artwork for the manual leading up to the supercar’s release over 20 years ago, describes the process in a video released by McLaren this week. “We were actively encouraged to make it more and more special,” he says.
The McLaren F1.
The books are rare, to say the least: only around a hundred F1s were made, spanning the better part of the 1990s. It was the fastest production car ever made at the time, topping out at 231 miles per hour; to celebrate that mark — still impressive even by today’s supercar standards — Roberts illustrated all of the cars dials, displays, and instruments to read “231.”
I don’t even own a book this nice, much less the car to go with it.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
