Three-seat McLaren supercar returns

The team behind McLaren’s famous Le Mans win is paying tribute to the victory 30 years on, with the return of three seats.

In 1995, McLaren unexpectedly won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its uber-money F1 supercar, beating dedicated prototypes against all odds.

The car was loaned to a Japanese team by Lanzante Motorsport, who prepared and ran the outfit, which crossed the line first with its now-famous Ueno Clinic livery and number #59 on the doors.

Now, Lanzante has turned its attention to reviving three-seat supercars, and it’s done so with a McLaren once again.

The Lanzante 59-95 – referencing the 1995-winning car’s number – is claimed to be based on a current McLaren platform (likely the 750S) but with “a carefully re-engineered example of the carbon fibre chassis”, which now accommodates three seats.

Like the McLaren F1, the driver seats in a central position, ahead of the passengers in the outer seats. This not only provides a more formula-racer style experience, but also a departure from the standard two-seat layout in almost every supercar.

Behind the driver sits a McLaren-developed twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 engine, tuned to produce 634kW and 880Nm. That’s 82kW and 80Nm more than the McLaren 750S, and well and truly above the 461kW/650Nm outputs of the original F1’s 6.5-litre V12 engine.

Power continues to be sent to the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, named the ‘Seamless Shift Gearbox’ or SSG by McLaren.

Lanzante is targeting a kerb weight of 1250kg for the 59-95, almost 100kg lighter than the 750S. The addition of the ‘LM30’ pack subtracts 20kg by including super-lightweight forged aluminium wheels, Inconel exhaust headers, titanium secondary and tailpipes, titanium body fixings, and gold-plated heat-shielding throughout the engine bay and exhaust.

This package also includes LM30 exterior badging, as well as an embossed Circuit de la Sarthe map on the driver’s head restraint and a “scrutineer-style chassis plaque”.

Of course, production is limited to just 59 examples, with prices in the UK starting from £1,020,000 before taxes – equivalent to about $2.1 million in Australia.

Lanzante isn’t the only brand celebrating 30 years since the Le Mans victory, as McLaren already unveiled its special-edition 750S earlier this year, complete with a choice of Le Mans Grey or McLaren’s iconic orange and carbon black exterior paint finishes.

Despite being significantly cheaper and closer to a production model, McLaren is only making 50 examples of its special anniversary edition.

It’s also not the only three-seat supercar we’ve seen in recent years, with the GMA T.50 – designed by the father of the McLaren F1, Gordon Murray – also launching in the past half-decade, though production is soon wrapping up.