The days are shortening and the cold weather is creeping in, so what better time for McLaren to announce the Elva—a roofless, winshield-less speedster with an 804hp version of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 usually found in the 720S and the Senna. Jeez.
But the Elva isn’t the first open-cockpit road car that McLaren has put its name to. Don’t tell us you’d forgotten about the stunning, all-out-crazy Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss. Of course you hadn’t.
Just look at it. That long sweeping hood, those side-exit exhausts, the mega rear diffuser, the famous SLR name accompanied by Sir Stirling’s. It had everything.
Under that lightweight carbon-fiber hood was a 5.4-liter AMG V8 putting out 641hp and 819Nm of torque. The top speed—despite the lack of a windshield—stood at 350kph. These were truly bonkers times.
When new, just 75 SLRs were built, and all sold at around £700,000 (around P45.92 million) a pop. Homages as special as this don’t depreciate, though, and the one you see above is currently for sale at £2.22 million (roughly P145.7 million). Yep, that’s no typo.
The car in question is being sold by German dealers Mechatronik and has just 964km on the clock. Heck, for the first two and a half years of its life, this car wasn’t even road-registered—it just sat in the current owner’s private museum.
Shall we have a whip-around?
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
