Zak Brown’s $1 Million Replacement for McLaren Beauty Didn’t Disappoint Veteran F1 Photojournalist

McLaren F1 CEO Zak Brown is one of the richest people in the paddock. He owns several cars worth millions of dollars. At the 2024 British GP, Brown swapped his new McLaren Speedtail for one of the company’s first hypercars, the McLaren P1.

Brown’s McLaren P1 did not disappoint veteran photojournalist Kym Illman, who spotted the American with the car. Speaking of the same, Illman said, “He did it last year, he’s done it a couple of times before but he was not in that car. He was in the McLaren P1. It looked good to me and Zak was pretty happy driving that“.

The McLaren P1 was revealed in 2012 with deliveries starting in 2013. The car cost around $1 million when it was launched. However, since the P1 was limited to only 375 units, the price has skyrocketed in recent years. It is extremely rare to find a P1 up for sale in the market.

The P1 featured a 3.8L Twin Turbo V8 mated to a 131 kW motor that put out 903 HP and 664 lb-ft of torque. The P1 was also the first high-performance car that featured a hybrid system.

And that is not it, as the P1 also featured an F1 car-like DRS button and an IPAS button that acted like the KERS system from the V8 era. However, Brown’s collection isn’t limited to McLarens as he’s believed to have a car collection worth a whopping $100 million.

Brown’s $100 million worth car collection

Brown has always been a huge fan of cars and was a racer himself before he became a businessman. The McLaren CEO started karting in the 80s and was racing in junior Formulas in the 90s. Brown then took a sabbatical in the early 2000s to focus on Just Marketing International (JMI) but then returned and raced in multiple GT series.

Brown is believed to have a car collection worth $100 million that includes about 60 cars. The collection includes both race and road cars. Ayrton Senna’s 1991 championship-winning McLaren-Honda MP4/6 is believed to be his favorite car of the bunch. 

McLaren M8D, a Williams FW11B, a 2008 Ferrari F430 Challenge, and a Porsche 959 are some of the other cars in his collection. Moreover, Brown also owns the MP4-27 that Lewis Hamilton drove during the 2012 season.

The McLaren boss will be driving the MP4-27 at the Italian GP. Brown often takes these multi-million cars out for a show run. Furthermore, he also raced in the 2024 Monaco Historique Grand Prix in the Williams FW07B.