You know him as the near-silent silly namesake character in “Mr. Bean.” That, or maybe you recognize him as the lovable, duty-driven buffoon in “Johnny English.” But you may not know that Rowan Atkinson is a serious petrol head. If you ever needed a perfect summation of his automotive affinity, his experience with a McLaren supercar says it all. 

Rowan Atkinson, the actor behind ‘Johnny English’ and ‘Mr. Bean’ bought a McLaren, wrecked it, and sold it for a huge profit

Rowan Atkinson has a Commander of the Order of the British Empire title (CBE) for his cultural contributions. But there’s a chance that Atkinson would rather respond to “petrol head.” Well, or a driver number at racing events like the Sopwith Cup or Goodwood. That’s right. Atkinson has high-octane gasoline pumping through his veins. 

So, what does a successful British celebrity with a penchant for all things fast and hairy do? Well, he buys one of the most spectacular pieces of engineering ever, of course. It took an eye-watering $830,000 to acquire his McLaren F1. But that was 1997. By today’s count, that sticker price would be closer to $1.65 million.

He must’ve known he was buying something special. After all, when the first McLaren F1s rolled off the line, they were instant performance benchmarks. Hell, the F1’s top speed of over 240 mph established it as the fastest production car in the world. A record it held until 2005 when the Bugatti Veyron dethroned it by hitting 253 mph.

However, his honeymoon with McLaren’s production car missile was short-lived. In 1999, Rowan Atkinson rear-ended another vehicle, damaging the F1’s front end. He commissioned a repair. End of story, right? Not quite. The “Rat Race” actor crashed the McLaren F1 once more in 2011. This one, however, was much more dramatic.

He spun out, crashing the car into a tree and a sign. It caught fire. Not a great day for obscenely expensive and historic performance cars. Two years and around $1.4 million later, Atkinson’s McLaren F1 broke the single-claim car insurance payout record on its way back to health. But Atkinson was about finished with his beloved and bonkers supercar. 

In 2015, he sent the record-breaking automobile to auction. You might think that two wrecks and extensive repair jobs might hurt its chances to snag a big payday. You’d be wrong. This is McLaren F1, after all. The British marque produced just 64 of the road-going, BMW-powered supercar. As a result, Rowan Atkinson snagged a $12.2 million high bid at the auction. All in all, Atkinson netted a profit of around $11.3 million after crashing it twice and putting nearly 40,000 miles on the clock.