The long version

The people who bought this wanted the McLaren F1 halo without the F1 ownership experience, and Mercedes was happy to sell them exactly that: an automatic gearbox, a trunk, and a nine-foot nose built to arrive rather than attack a corner. Values sagged through the mid-2010s and have since climbed back past sticker, which says more about McLaren nostalgia than about the SLR earning it on its own terms. F1 DNA is the badge and also the whole marketing pitch, a name borrowed from a program the car never actually competed in. It is a car for being seen arriving, not felt driving.