Polish car enthusiast and Top Gear fan, Jacek Mazur, has built his own McLaren F1 supercar from scratch. The project took the amateur mechanic eight years to complete along with the help of his friends and family. The replica, built by the 48-year-old car enthusiast from Zabrze, Poland, can hit a top speed of 200 mph. For a car built almost completely from scratch on a budget of only £20,000, that top speed is highly impressive.
Jacek Mazur is not unfamiliar with creating replicas as his collection of Porsche and Lamborghini replicas can clearly tell. “I have been creating cars for the past 20 years now. I have built many types of cars previously, including a Porsche 911 and a Lamborghini Countach,” Mazur said in an interview. He has created a few Lamborghini Countach replicas over the years but the McLaren is his crowned jewel. “The McLaren was such a great car that when I saw it the first time I decided to build it,” he says.
By profession Jacek is a health and safety adviser, but he is well familiar with the world of automobile design and construction. He built the replica’s tubular chassis from scratch and even replicated the car’s unique three-seat cabin layout. Jacek claims that the construction of the frame and the positioning of the driver’s seat were the most difficult tasks in creating the replica. He went one further by managing to fit an extra fourth seat into the cabin between the two passenger seats in the rear. The seat is called the Hammond seat, named after the smallest of the Top Gear presenters, Richard Hammond.
The original McLaren F1 used a 6.1 liter BMW V12 to reach its once record breaking top speed of 231mph, but Mazur’s replica uses a slightly more distilled Audi V8 Engine. Although it does not reach the top speed of the original car, but the replica can still stand its own when it comes to performance. With brakes from Mercedes and an engine from Audi, Mazur’s replica F1 has got the necessary amount of performance pedigree.
The car may not be the real deal but it still manages to turn heads everywhere it goes. According to Mazur, “Many people will literally stop and stare and take a proper look at it. They will ask what model the car is. Even if it’s just a replica, it looks like the real deal.” For those of us who cannot part with millions in cash to own a supercar, Jacek Mazur’s story is a ray of hope for all enthusiasts. Images shown below.
The stages of the replica’s construction
The roughly finished replica
The body and frame
Jacek Mazur in his prized creation
A look at the finished product
The project took eight years to complete
Mazur built the replica from scrap
The replica can hit a top speed of 200mph
Mazur has created many other replicas
The replica uses an Audi V8 engine
Mazur is a huge fan of the TV show Top Gear
The various parts that went into making the replica F1
A close look at the body shell
The tubular frame was built by Mazur himself
The original F1 that inspired Jacek
The interior. Positioning the driver’s seat was a difficult task
The replica turns heads everywhere it goes
