The family of Mansour Ojjeh has appointed Tom Hartley Jnr, the high-end dealer in classic and historic sports cars and racing cars, to oversee the sale of the late businessman’s collection of 20 McLaren road cars.
Ojjeh, who died in 2021, was instrumental in shaping British McLaren into the modern automotive company it is today after buying an ownership stake in the firm back in 1984.
When McLaren Automotive began producing road cars in earnest, Mansour turned his attention to building the ultimate McLaren road car collection.
Mansour’s passion for cars saw him owning celebrated icons, including a Ferrari collection. But more than owning legendary machines, Mansour longed to create one.
It wasn’t until a delayed flight after the 1988 Italian Grand Prix, in the company of Ron Dennis and Gordon Murray, that the trio agreed to move forward with an ambitious new goal: to build the greatest road car the world had ever seen — the McLaren F1.
The legendary McLaren F1 is the “jewel in the crown” of the collection, and the last of that model ever produced, with less than 2,000km on the clock.
The model is also finished in a unique colour named “Yquem”, after the esteemed and rare dessert wine, and to reflect the significance of this vehicle, McLaren subsequently renamed the colour “Mansour Orange”, a custom hue used exclusively on his cars.
The collection also features the Speedtail, P1, Senna and Sabre — the latter being the last of only 16 examples ever produced — plus special and limited Longtail and Le Mans editions. There’s also the Elva, delivered after Mansour’s passing with manufacturer badges replaced by Mansour’s own emblem as a tribute to one of their founders.
Mansour requested the final chassis number for each model, ensuring his cars incorporated all the technical updates made during the production cycle. The result is without equal. Every car remains unused, in factory-delivered condition, and maintained under direct instruction by McLaren themselves — a service no other collector has ever received.
“McLaren meant so much to Mansour. It was more than business, it was pure passion and it was in that vein that he curated this unique collection of McLaren road cars. The ‘Last of Legends’ car collection is a treasure for our family — a reminder of the hours we witnessed Mansour designing each car to his specifications,” says Kathy Ojjeh, widow of Mansour Ojjeh.
“Parting with this very personal collection is not easy, but it is time for it to go to its new custodian, one who truly ‘gets it’ and will cherish owning and caring for it the way Mansour did.
Fresh from selling Bernie Ecclestone’s collection of 69 historic grand prix and Formula One cars earlier this year, Tom Hartley Jnr said: “Being entrusted with the sale of Mansour Ojjeh’s McLaren collection is akin to handling Enzo Ferrari’s Ferraris or Ferdinand Porsche’s Porsches.”
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