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SOLD: 1997 McLaren XP-GT, one of the rarest and most valuable supercars of all time.If you thought the McLaren F1 was ra...
09/10/2026

SOLD: 1997 McLaren XP-GT, one of the rarest and most valuable supercars of all time.

If you thought the McLaren F1 was rare, or even the F1 LM, then this takes it to the next level. McLaren calls it “The ultimate iteration of the McLaren F1 concept.”

Just three F1 GTs were ever built, road cars intended to homologate the long tail GTR version for racing, and this is the unique factory ‘XP’ prototype, the template for the two customer examples which followed. Nearly 30 years after it was built, its odometer shows 175 miles.

Design genius Gordon Murray was initially reluctant to go racing with the F1, but, encouraged by a couple of enthusiastic owners, he finally relented and created the F1 GTR. Not only did that car win the BPR Global GT Series, it also took a memorable victory at the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours – its debut appearance at the world’s most famous race.

By 1997, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz had joined the party with designs that were the polar opposite of the McLaren: pure-bred racing cars that were converted into the bare minimum of road cars. Murray therefore decided to beat them at their own game by producing a long-tail version of the F1.

This is the original – chassis 056 XP GT – and the car featured in the factory brochure. It was 20kg lighter than the standard F1 road car and 27bhp more powerful than the racing version. Uniquely finished in Silverstone Green with a bespoke beige leather and Alcantara interior, it was retained until 2017 by the factory when we acquired it for a VIP client.

It is a true unicorn and one of the most significant cars of its era ever to have been sold.

Amiurican Mission: Complete 🇺🇸🇮🇹Five days, 700 miles, 14 Miuras from around the world.Before you ask, all made it to the...
01/10/2026

Amiurican Mission: Complete 🇺🇸🇮🇹

Five days, 700 miles, 14 Miuras from around the world.

Before you ask, all made it to the end except for one, which had an electrical issue on the last day. Alternator belts didn’t like the heavy rain, but apart from that, reliability was never an issue. The TOP MOTORS SALVIOLI team were on hand with Razmik to keep the cars running perfectly.

“How did you gather such a great group of people?” “14 out of 10!” “Can’t you do another one before five years, please?” were some of the comments.

The 2FAST4YOU.it team spent two years preparing, including five recce trips to drive the route (and alternatives), 40 nights in motels and countless meetings with authorities, suppliers and logistics partners. Getting the cars to Manhattan for the 6am departure just as a storm passed over was no mean feat, but the experience was worth it for memories that will last forever. They had 22 staff on the event — almost as many in support as there were driving teams.

The roads suited the Miuras perfectly. One owner, who also races in historic F1, pointed out that the cars corner flat, with minimal understeer, while the flexibility of the engine carries you through long, flowing sections on a wave of torque, accompanied by the V12 wail echoing through the landscape and cabin. Everyone agreed that it made them want to drive their cars faster and more often.

We’re now sitting outside an Italian art museum two hours from New York, surrounded by autumn colours, feeling like it’s the end of the holidays and all our friends have left. We can hear the Miuras being started and loaded onto trucks to travel around the world, or to Top Motors Salvioli for servicing over the winter.

Trips like these remind us why we love these cars so much, and how they only really come alive when you’re behind the wheel, doing what they were built to do.

Think of the combined history of these cars and the stories they could tell.All were well over 60 years old, each was dr...
21/09/2026

Think of the combined history of these cars and the stories they could tell.

All were well over 60 years old, each was driven through sun, rain and even cattle, and the bar was full each evening with tales of a favourite stretch of road or view, various mechanical mishaps and the warmth of the locals everywhere we stopped.

The key to that, and the spirit of the rally, is that this is a charity event with only one paid employee, which gives hundreds of thousands of dollars every year- all of its profits- to local communities. “I’m with the fire service” said a man in a pickup at a petrol station- “and I’d like to thank you for supporting us.”

The Colorado Grand has been around since 1989 and is very oversubscribed: it accepts around 100 pre-1960 cars, although with exceptions where it’s something special a year or two younger.

We never heard one conversation about values, investment, mileage, “certified” or “100 points”. Most entrants are American with a sprinkling of Brits, Swiss and Italians. We were received like family: “It’s your first Grand? How do you like it? You must come back!”

There was plenty of chat about carb jets (we were often above 3,000m and never below 2,000), how much your car leaked, how long your alternator had left, if you were firing on all cylinders and how anyone could help you. ‘The Motors’ (eight Colorado State Patrol motorcyclists hand selected from across the state) shepherded us the whole way and were accompanied by a fleet of trucks with mechanics equipped like amateur racing teams. Mercedes laid on AMGs for anyone whose car couldn’t be revived.

Our 1963 300 SL Roadster went like a train until the alternator started struggling, but the MB Classic guys had it working again by the next morning. Simon got a birthday ride in a 250 Testa Rossa and Giorgio in a 250 GTO, both owned by the nicest father and son team you could meet, and Simon received the Rookie of the Year award. There’s so much GTO hype but I’m afraid to say it was even better than that from inside the cabin at 7,000rpm in top gear. For 50 miles…

“I loved my car on Monday” summed up one owner at the finish, “but I love it even more today after 1,000 miles.”

Colorado Grand 2026, day two. It all started with the great ambition of “Oh, let’s not be the last ones” and ended with ...
17/09/2026

Colorado Grand 2026, day two. It all started with the great ambition of “Oh, let’s not be the last ones” and ended with us chatting about, guess what, cars at breakfast until there was nobody left.

We reset the odometer, cross-read the exact indications in the roadbook until the word “downhill” made it clear which direction to turn, and off we went. A lunch break at the Pioneer Museum (not the stereos, but those who made America) gave us the opportunity to of course look at even more cars before we continued, mile after mile, exploring Colorado.

The weather kept changing, making D-type drivers more heroic and 300 SL Roadster teams quick to close their soft tops at F1 team speed.

Undisciplined US cows as a bonus video.

It’s almost midnight here in the US, and the first day of the Colorado Grand has already flown by. Of course, we weren’t...
16/09/2026

It’s almost midnight here in the US, and the first day of the Colorado Grand has already flown by. Of course, we weren’t the first ones to start in the morning; a lorry took our luggage (as the boot is filled by the 300 SL Roadster’s fitted luggage, which would then require some further packing and unpacking), and we gently began this first, almost 300-mile-long day.

The first stop in Leadville, the highest incorporated city in the United States, surrounded by the two tallest peaks in the state, Mount Elbert and Mount Massive (no copy-pasting from Wikipedia at all), welcomed us with warm coffee in the almost 150-year-old Tabor Opera House, until we further progressed for hours of fantastic driving.

The State Troopers made sure we could keep the right pace, weather and scenarios changed, rivers and creeks left and right just made us appreciate nature almost as much as some rusty military vehicles, and of course the major attraction that fuel stations can exercise on us grown-up boys. The Roadster did not miss a beat and it is now sleeping well in excellent company, some photos of the hotel’s garage as a reward for who scrolled until the end (or even read until here).

More to come over the next days - we’ll try to share as much as possible of the enthusiasm that we are having!

27/08/2026

“My father never let me drive it again”
 
Here’s the son of its long-term French owner with a funny story about the 1962 Ferrari 250GT Cabriolet his father bought some 50 years ago which we recently pulled out of the family garage on the Cote d’Azur.
 
It won’t be restored, just ‘gone through’ mechanically and tidied up cosmetically so it’s ready for new adventures. You could never duplicate the character of that 64-year old Connolly leather which has aged gracefully despite the outside world being very different now compared to when visitors first admired the car at the 1962 Geneva Motor Show.

‘Garage finds’ are always exciting: you need patience, diplomacy and luck. We were tipped off about this car two and a h...
26/08/2026

‘Garage finds’ are always exciting: you need patience, diplomacy and luck. We were tipped off about this car two and a half years ago via the curator of a famous US collection, who had a French friend who owned a restaurant in the US, who knew a family in the south of France with an old Ferrari owned for decades…

Many months later we eventually met the family, slowly found out more about the car from them, did our own research in parallel, and were excited by what we found. This summer we reached an agreement with the various family members to buy the car. The remote garage where it had spent the past 50 years was rarely attended, administrative paperwork in France isn’t always quick, and everyone involved had a job which didn’t always allow them to take time off. Finally late in June we met at the garage, the doors were opened and with local help the car was hauled out into the sunshine. The family couldn’t have been nicer.

It’s a 1962 Ferrari 250GT Cabriolet Series 2, the only one delivered in this colour (Bianco 18934 Italver) and still has its original red leather interior and factory hard top. It was built for the 1962 Geneva Motor Show and sold soon afterwards to Mrs Solange Garcia Darwin, living between Geneva and the chic Neuilly suburb of Paris. She wrote to Enzo Ferrari in 1968 about servicing and sold the car in the mid-1970s to the French family from whom we acquired it. Pininfarina’s archive and historians Marcel Massini, Emiliano Torkar and Keith Bluemel have been invaluable.

The Ferrari arrived back in its native Italy soon afterwards, where Carlo and Renato Bonini checked the mechanical elements and the Cremonini team studied the bodywork. They are now bringing it slowly back to life, although we’ve already had our first test drive. Apart from a slipping clutch, everything works as it should and all the numbers match, including Pininfarina’s hidden body markings. These are the finds we enjoy, cars with stories to tell which have been loved and enjoyed and survived through the decades when many were modified or lost their character.

Stay tuned for the next chapters of its story…

After over a decade of combined years of restoration, we flew these sixties legends all the way to California for Pebble...
21/08/2026

After over a decade of combined years of restoration, we flew these sixties legends all the way to California for Pebble Beach.
 
As we often experience, cars have souls, and the ISO A3/C is one that clearly has a sense of humour. The gearbox behaved perfectly throughout the tour but didn’t appreciate waking up at dawn on Sunday, as every gear was still asleep except reverse, and that’s how it stayed. The rules never specify which direction a car must be driven to collect a prize, so thinking outside the (gear)box was required. We made a rather surprising appearance to collect second in our category.
 
Davide from our Top Motors team was thrilled all the same: the Miura SV that won the class (driving forwards) was restored by him, his father and his late grandfather Orazio Salvioli.
 
Lots of attention also for the two Astons, the DB4 GT Lightweight, a factory left-hand drive, one of only three LHD examples among the nine Lightweights built. Prepared for competition and intended for the 1961 Sebring 12 Hours (although it never made it, probably due to a payment not arriving on time), it wears a hand-formed aluminium body over a steel tubular frame, with a drilled and lightened chassis underneath, and the DB4 GT Zagato: the ultimate original-specification Zagato, with its triple bonnet bulges and lightweight seats. First owner Edy Corthésy raced it at the 1961 RAC de Spa Grand Prix; it then appeared at the 1961 Geneva Show and on the cover of Car and Driver in 1962.

13/08/2026

Jeweller, designer, businessman and racer: Gianni Bulgari has certainly led a full and glamorous life.

He was heir to a family firm that counted movie stars and aristocracy among its clients – Richard Burton once said that the only Italian word Elizabeth Taylor knew was ‘Bulgari’. It gave Gianni the means to indulge his passion for motor racing, and in 1964 he bought a new Porsche 904 directly from the factory.

With its stiff chassis, lightweight glassfibre body, and rear-mounted four-cam engine, the 904 was the German marque’s latest contender in the ultra-competitive world of GT racing.

Bulgari’s first outing with chassis ‘904 080’ came at the 1964 Targa Florio. His new car was perfectly suited to the 44-mile Piccolo Madonie circuit, which twisted and turned through the Sicilian countryside. This was road-racing in its most traditional form.

Gianni arrived a week early in order to practice, and said of the 904 that ‘it represented an enormous step forward’ – quite a compliment from a man who’d previously owned and raced a 250 GTO.

The practice paid off: Gianni led the great race at half-distance before being forced to retire with suspension damage. After that, he campaigned the 904 in hillclimbs and race meetings alike, winning at the challenging old Mugello road circuit.

Today, the 904 evokes that golden period of dual-purpose GT cars that were equally at home on the road as they were on the track – and it can still make every journey feel like a lap of the Piccolo Madonie.

#1964

An up-and-coming American collector was recently introduced to us by a mutual friend: “I’ve done the modern supercar thi...
12/08/2026

An up-and-coming American collector was recently introduced to us by a mutual friend: “I’ve done the modern supercar thing and now I’m discovering the classic world. I realise they’re hard to find, but I just love the Miura SV…”

Timing, as they say, is everything. We’d known this one for almost 30 years, but it seemed like its long-term owner would never let go. It’s an SV delivered new to David Kirby, co-owner of West Chester Honda in Pennsylvania, late in 1971, with split sump lubrication and air conditioning. Amusing period correspondence we’ve unearthed between him and the factory shows he didn’t want to deal with the US importer but eventually had no choice, although he collected the new car in Sant’ Agata and sent it back there for servicing until late 1973. The biggest mystery was the original colour: ‘Verde Uc***lo di Mare’ is unique for any Miura. The Eureka moment came doing research on late 1960s Ferraris: they offered a rare colour called Verde Seabird (Pininfarina named them after famous race horses) and sure enough, it was the same dark green. Kirby paired this with Pelle Moro (dark brown Connolly leather, matching the dashboard and steering wheel) and gold wheels and sills. As specs go, it’s hard to beat: he paid $22,000.

By 1980 the car was in Pacific Palisades with a Barry Brown: his correspondence says he was the second owner but doesn’t reveal his occupation, although his notes are scribbled on the back of a movie script. He had it repainted red and Bob Wallace carried out various upgrades. Finally in 1989 the car left the USA destined for Monte Carlo and the collector who would keep it until now, painted Verde Miura and used enthusiastically.

Our man Davide Salvioli drove to Monaco, inspected it and reported back: a great basis but expect to restore everything. That’s exactly what the team will now do, but the end result will be unique and good enough to last another 50+ years. Equally rewarding is the history we keep finding, like the 3rd picture taken outside the factory late in 1973 by a South African client: we’re confident this is the SV parked second right next to Simon’s. One by one the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place!

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