A YouTuber who bought a flooded McLaren P1 is now attempting to rebuild the $2 million supercar.
YouTuber Tavarish bought the waterlogged McLaren for $575,000 after it was sensationally destroyed in Hurricane Ian last year.
“If you’re anything like me and you saw that video of the McLaren P1 getting ripped out of its garage by hurricane flood waters and getting dragged down the street, you got sick to your stomach,” he said.
“But even in that destroyed state, that car was still my ultimate dream car.”
READ MORE! YouTuber buys destroyed McLaren P1, vowing to ‘spend every cent I have to restore it’
After he bought the car at auction, he towed it to his workshop and got to work.
“Today we’re going to find out if this engine is actually any good,” he said.
“But before we go into the engine, we have to make sure that all this sand and dirt and glass is dealt with.
“So we’re going to clean this up first and then we can go into this engine and see if there’s any water in it.
“I’m going to need a lot of fingers crossed and well wishes. Pray for me.”
At first, everything looked relatively clean, but it wasn’t long before his exploratory mission uncovered water, bacteria, and mold.
Using a tiny camera and digital display screen, Tavarish even found seafoam in a cylinder.
Despite this, he said the damage was all fixable.
“This just needs a really really good flush,” he said.
Tavarish used Marvel mystery oil to break up the bacteria and lubricate the cylinders, leaving it there for a couple of days.
Then he drained the oil, and unsurprisingly, water came pouring out.
“Now I know that some of the more technical people in the audience might be saying ‘well if water came in the engine, it had to come in through the exhaust, and that’s correct,” he said.
“So we have to take off this exhaust, we have to take off the catalytic converters, and the turbos.
“Those are all going to be shot, I think we’re going to need to rebuild them.”
Tavarish wasn’t under any illusions when he bought the car, he knew it would be a huge restoration project.
But after he got his hands on the car, he realized just what that would involve.
“Turns out that de-flooding a car is real dirty work,” he said.
Next up, Tavarish said he would “de-gunkify the entire thing” to make it a bit easier to work on.
“Number one, I want to make sure that I don’t get any weird diseases from the mold and stuff in this car, and number two, I just want the car to look as if it costs a million dollars.”
