The McLaren W1 is the successor to the F1 and P1 as the brand’s flagship hypercar – but it is a bit expensive. If you want to fulfill your dreams of owning a W1, then there is a cheaper alternative, courtesy of Amalgam Collection, which has designed a model W1.
At £14,995, the model W1 isn’t cheap; in fact, for that money you could buy an actual car – a brand-new Dacia Sandero is £230 cheaper, or even less if you go through the Auto Express Buy A Car service. But without wishing to sound like an M&S advert, the model W1 isn’t just any model. Each one requires more than 300 hours of hand assembly by Amalgam’s artisans in Bristol, and is created using the original CAD designs, paint codes and material specifications supplied by McLaren. Amalgam says its model took over 3,000 hours to develop.
What’s more, the real-life McLaren W1 is limited to 399 examples globally and is expected to cost around £2 million. If you divide that figure by eight (the Amalgam Collection’s model is at 1:8 scale), you get £250,000, making that £14,995 price tag look like a steal. Well, sort of.
Aside from its perfect proportions, the model W1 also features working scissor doors, an operational remote-control rear wing, and fully detailed interior and aerodynamic surfaces. The aforementioned pricing is for the ‘Launch’ specification of the model – which is rarer than the actual car, with just 199 units being made and only coming in a Papaya Spark paint finish. There are also ‘Tailor Made’ commissions available to W1 owners that are built to replicate their vehicle’s configuration and priced from £20,995.
All allocations of the real-world W1 have already been accounted for and despite its eye-watering price, it’s still easy to see why. The W1 uses a twin-turbo V8 and hybrid system, but McLaren completely redesigned this new 4.0-litre engine, targeting a 9,000rpm red line and a 915bhp power figure, plus an enhanced power delivery and soundtrack. The hybrid system uses a 342bhp e-motor, bringing the W1’s total output to 1,258bhp. The W1 also weighs just 1,399kg, so the result is a power-to-weight ratio of 899bhp/tonne – the highest of any McLaren.
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