History of chassis 067

Chassis 067 was the 58th McLaren F1 production car built, one of eleven examples completed in 1997 and one of 18 painted Magnesium Silver. The interior was upholstered in a mix of black and dark grey leather and alcantara with a light grey driver’s seat insert and light grey stitching.

067 was also one of the seven F1s exported to the United States by Ameritech (the others having been chassis 042, 044, 045, 055, 062 and 074).

Whether all seven of these cars were subject to the full Ameritech safety and emissions conversion seems unlikely; each was claimed to have been built in 1995 so they did not need to comply with OBD-II emissions standards and after the first conversion was carried out, the subsequent cars were not individually inspected by the authorities.

In early 1999, chassis 067 (in factory as opposed to Ameritech trim) was sold to business magnate Elon Musk in Palo Alto.

During February of that year, 27-year old Musk had sold the internet city guide Zip2 (started with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri) to Compaq for $307m. Musk received £22m for his 7% share and promptly acquired 067 which he went on to use as his everyday mode of transport, reputedly putting over 10,000 miles on the car during this first year of ownership.

Later in 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company which merged with online bank and Paypal owner Confinity in 2000.

Some time between 2000 and 2002 (when Paypal was acquired by eBay for $1.5b), Musk was travelling in 067 with Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel when the uninsured car was crashed into an embankment after a reputed “watch this” moment.

Musk subsequently had the car repaired and retained it until 2007. By this time Musk had become the majority shareholder and CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla Inc. – apparently Musk thought owing such a vehicle would give off the wrong image.

Chassis 067 was sold to another California-based owner. In 2009 the back end of the car was fire damaged after a catalytic converter-related issue. However, 067 was dispatched to McLaren Special Operations in England and completely rebuilt to its original condition.

Text copyright: Supercar Nostalgia
Photo copyright: Alex Bellus Photography – http://www.alexbellusphoto.com/