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The former F1 world champion Jenson Button is putting his McLaren P1 up for sale.
The star driver announced the news on his Instagram account on Monday morning:
"McLaren P1 up for sale so that someone else can enjoy her. It’s a tough decision but living in America I don’t really get the chance to drive this beauty, I did give her a final blast up to Silverstone for WEC last month though!"
He told Autocar earlier this year that the P1 was a car he loved for 'its slightly snarly on-the-limit behaviour'. The dealer selling the car claims that it's a unique '1 of 1 example' with custom order 'Grauschwartz Grey' paint, interior colour combination and road legal ‘Track Mode 2’ options.
How much? Well, as they say if you need to ask you can't afford it. But as a guide, a 2015 example sold at auction in America earlier this year for US$1.7 million (£1.3 million). The car is being sold by Steve Hurn Cars, based in Suffolk.
But the P1 is far from the only interesting car Button has owned over the years - when we caught up with him recently while he was promoting his new book, Jenson Button: Life to the Limit, we couldn’t resist asking him about his car collection, past and present - let's take a look at it:
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Vauxhall Cavalier
Button’s first car was a Vauxhall Cavalier (similar car pictured). “Two-litre, eight valve - 16-valve was too much to insure - G-reg plate, 1989,” he recalls.
“It cost £2000 and I bought it with some winnings from karting, but it needed an overhaul to teenage spec, so in came the big stereo, lowered suspension. By the time I’d bankrupted myself modifying it, it was quite a good little car,” he beams.
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Ferrari F355
Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 world champion, didn’t waste much time indulging his love of road cars once he was elevated to Formula 1, aged just 19, back in 2000. “The year I signed for Williams I went to a Ferrari dealer and bought an F355 (similar car pictured),” he smiles.
“I wasn’t allowed to test drive it as I was too young for the dealership’s insurance, so I had to sit in the passenger seat with the salesman, soaking it all up. It was only after I bought the car and got my own insurance that I was actually allowed to drive it.”
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Ferrari F40
Driving off in your first Ferrari is a bit of a ‘pinch yourself’ moment for anyone, but surely more so for someone with as deep-rooted a love of the brand as Button.
“When I was growing up I had three posters on my wall: Pamela Anderson, Bart Simpson and a Ferrari F40,” he smiles. “My only regret is that when I bought the F355 there was an F40 sat next to it for not much more money - and the F40 would have been a far better investment. Mind you, I eventually got an F40 as well. What a car - it feels so alive.”
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Road v F1 cars
After ascending to F1, for a period Button indulged a lot of whims with regards to cars. Many, including a succession of limited edition Porsches, he concedes, he bought and sold without driving, as investments - something he knows may wind up car lovers, but which he is pretty circumspect about.
“Even ultra-high performance road cars don’t compare to driving an F1 car, and working that out really developed my buying tastes,” he says. “A few experiences shaped my thinking, but let’s say that I worked out having the newest, shiniest thing wasn’t always the most fun. PICTURE: Jenson Button at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed – by Mark Riccioni
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Bugatti Veyron
Pushed, he recounts a particularly gruelling experience when, at the height of his indulgences, he bought a Veyron. Within days, he was starting to regret it. “A damaged tyre cost something like £5000. How can you enjoy a car that costs that much to run?” he rues.
But the Veyron blotted its copybook in Button’s eyes forever when he was out cruising in Kensington, London a few weeks into his ownership. “I was at some traffic lights, feeling like the man, but when I selected first it just ate the gearbox. I had to get out and push it out of everyone’s way. A traffic policeman even refused to help, saying it wasn’t his job. When you’re pushing your broken Veyron down the road, all alone with the world staring at you, some of the fun goes out of it.”
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Ferrari Enzo
A Ferrari Enzo didn’t win his affections, either. “I owned it for something like two weeks,” he says. “It might be an icon, but I thought it was a bit, well, cumbersome really. It was not for me, anyway.”
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McLaren P1
And now we come to the car he's selling now:
Older and wiser, Button became a bit more circumspect about buying cars. Just a bit, mind. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account, you still seem to come to the end of the month and ask yourself ‘how did I spend all that?’” he recounts, half-laughing, while acknowledging that he was tempted into a McLaren P1, a car he loves for its slightly snarly on-the-limit behavior.
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VW Campervan
“One of my favourites ever is a VW camper van I bought. We spent a fair bit doing it up, but what I realised is that there’s far more fun to be had in buying cars you can use, and enjoy, than ones that you sweat over driving every mile in, because of the expense, or loss of value because it has an extra few miles on the clock.” Button is now planning to relocate the Veedub from the UK to his new home in Los Angeles so the love affair can continue.
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Chevrolet 3100
Button also accepts that he can never quite trust himself not to get carried away when he goes car shopping. “When I settled in Los Angeles I thought I should buy something very American,” he says. “I went to an auction with my eyes on a car… and came home with three. But they were all pretty affordable, and irresistible. There’s a Trans-Am, a Chevy Bel Air powered by a 500bhp LS7 Corvette engine and a 1956 Chevy 3100 pick-up (pictured).
“The Trans-Am I’ve driven once: to a beach where my fiancee and some friends were doing a swimwear photoshoot. The coconut oil took an age to clean off, so I’m going to have to find time to drive it properly. The pick-up is bright blue, 1956 vintage and entirely charming. The Bel Air? Well, that engine! I might end up selling it, but you can’t regret that engine.”
Jenson Button: Life to the Limit is published by Blink Publishing and available in paperback
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