It only took eight months for customers to secure McLaren’s->ke284 entire allotment of 375 2014 McLaren P1s after it was first shown in 2013, but now customers might have one last chance to buy one of a small run of additional P1s.->ke4608 New reports suggest that McLaren will build five P1 XP Carbon Series Red cars from five prototype P1s that were used in pre-production testing.

According to a report from Blacklist via The Super Car Kids, all five P1 XPs will wear a polished carbon fiber finish with red pinstripes on the front splitter, side skirts, rear diffuser, rear view mirrors and around the extractor vents on the hood. The black wheels will also have red accent inner rings. Inside, the Alcantara seats will get red stitching and P1 logos, while more red accents are on the dash and center console.

Performance-wise everything is expected to remain unchanged from other P1s, but with a 903-horsepower gas-electric powertrain, they won’t exactly be lacking. Between the 800-horsepower twin-turbo V-8 and 103-horsepower electric motor, it does 0-60 in 2.6 seconds and 0-100 in 4.7. McLaren claims it will lap the Nürburgring->ke999 in less than seven minutes. All that, with the ability to run for over six miles on electricity alone.

It’s not known exactly how many P1 prototypes were built, but it was almost certainly more than five. Some would have been sacrificed to crash tests and one, called the XP-7, was used for press drives and is said to have over 40,000 miles on its odometer. Its name would also indicate that there were at least seven prototypes built. Other prototypes would have been subjected to extreme temperatures in places like Death Valley and northern Scandinavia.

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Why it matters

Adding on to a limited production run is normally the sort of thing that makes current owners a bit grumpy. The reasoning being that additional cars dilute the values of ones that have already found homes. But, if these reports are accurate, these five P1 XP Carbon Series Red cars are ones that already existed and are being refurbished at the factory. Plus, it’s only five cars, so how much effect could they have on current P1 values as a whole?

In a sense this is history repeating itself. McLaren also built five F1->ke1159 “experimental prototypes,” called XP1 through XP5, one of which is still owned by Gordon Murray. Another is the car that had its rev limiter removed and set the famous 242-mph top speed record at Volkswagen’s->ke94 Ehra-Lessien test track. There’s also a sixth F1 XP LM, which was promised by Ron Dennis to Lewis Hamilton if he won three F1 World Championships with McLaren. Hamilton left for Mercedes->ke187 before that ever happened, so it’s still on display at McLaren headquarters in Woking, England.

2015 McLaren P1 XP

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