Washington man takes his rebuilt title 2019 McLaren 720S to CarMax to see what it's worth and has to wince when he finds out

This Washington YouTuber bought a 2019 McLaren 720S with the full carbon fiber package for peanuts, rebuilt it, and then took it to CarMax.

If he did this out of curiosity, then it was fine; but if he did it as a business idea, it was clearly a mistake.

He found out the hard way when he tried to get the supercar appraised and the offers he received were all shocking.

But that’s because we failed to mention one key element about this car.

The math isn’t mathing here

As far as financial decisions go, this McLaren 720S was probably a bit of a mistake.

Actually no, let us rephrase that.

This carbon fiber supercar was relatively inexpensive to buy, but it was then incredibly expensive to rebuild.

This makes it great for a project or for a YouTube channel, but not maybe so great if you’re trying to ‘flip’ it.

You can no longer buy a new McLaren 720S because it’s been discontinued, but, when it was fresh from the showroom, an equivalent 2019 McLaren 720S, with the Performance trim and the full carbon package, would’ve cost its owner between $350,000 and $400,000.

This Washington YouTuber only paid $79,000 for it, which sounds great in theory, but he then had to spend around $150,000 to rebuild it.

Having done that, he then took it to three separate places – CarMax, McLaren Scottsdale, and Carvana – to get it appraised, and the offers he received were all pretty low.

But that’s because this car had a problem we haven’t mentioned before.

The problem begins with ‘S’ and ends with ‘alvage title’.

The reason why the valuation for this McLaren was so abysmal

At the end of the day, it all boils down to one simple fact: automakers and dealers alike do not want anything to do with salvage title cars.

For reference, a salvage title car is a vehicle that’s been declared a total loss by an insurance company because repair costs exceed its market value.

And, in some cases, because the car is deemed no longer safe to drive.

In a best-case scenario, the car drives, but the automaker and insurance company have concluded that the structural stability and overall safety of the vehicle cannot be guaranteed, especially in the long run, and just call it a write-off.

This is the case with Mat Armstrong’s Bugatti Veyron and Chiron, for example.

In a worst-case scenario, the car isn’t even roadworthy anymore and can’t be driven legally on public roads.

As for Washington YouTuber Remmy Evans’ McLaren 720S, the good news is the supercar still drives – he’s already done 20,000 miles in it – but the value of the vehicle isn’t great.

McLaren Scottsdale offered $110,000 but noted that it is generally against their policy to take rebuilt/tuned cars.

As for CarMax, the situation was even worse: they offered $86,000.

That’s barely enough to cover the cost of the initial purchase, which was not ideal.