Among the last places on earth you’d expect to find the screaming V-12 stuff of legend, Tacoma, Washington is among them. It’s not a bad place, just an unlikely one, thousands of miles from the nearest permanent F1 circuit, sat in the long shadow of its glossier sister city.
We’re inside the brightly lit, eat-sashimi-off-the-floor clean shop of Tacoma’s Griot’s Motors. Yes, it’s that same family namesake as the car-care brand from your garage cupboard, except this place does 100-point concours restorations. There’s not a chamois for sale in sight. Anything from a Ferrari F40 to a boxy Volkswagen Golf is game here. And that’s not hyperbole.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Their job at Griot’s Motors is to do the best job, no matter the car. That means a full-resto Lancia Stratos nose-to-tail with a daily driver Aston in for a cost-no-object respray. They accept all comers here, so long as when the project leaves, it’s perfect.
It’s a theme you understand after rounding the corner past the front office and hooking a left into the shop’s main workspace. There it sits, just past the door: Perfection. It’s a slash of white and orange-red so iconic, you double-take at its presence. Maybe if you blink, you think, it’ll evaporate back into your daydreams.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
This is MP4/7. Not simply a McLaren F1 car, but one plucked from F1’s most-compelling era, one driven to victory by Ayrton Senna. And it’s not just a race-winning Senna car. This is MP4/7 chassis number 7, a land-bound cruise missile with a taste for Monaco victory.
And it’s equipped with Honda V-12 power. Of the few Japanese automakers that dared to raise a fist at the F1 establishment, Honda is the only one to leave a dent. (Sorry, Toyota).
And what a dent they made. From humble origins, Honda rose off the back of its own engineering might to achieve a dash of success during F1’s romantic mid-century. But 1983 marked the start of Honda F1’s golden age, when the company re-entered as an engine supplier following a 15-year absence. Wins came sporadically at first, then in a wave, culminating in a world title with Williams and Nelson Piquet in 1987.
Then Honda kept rolling.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
This is MP4/7. Not simply a McLaren F1 car, but one plucked from F1’s most-compelling era, one driven to victory by Ayrton Senna.
From its re-entry in 1983 through the 1992 season—the year MP4/7 ran Monaco—Honda won 69 races, including five consecutive drivers championships from ‘87 onward. To top that tally, it powered six consecutive constructors’ champions from ‘86 on.
It’s a staggering achievement. Doubly impressive because that success came so consistently and over such a long period; A glut of podiums, fastest laps, and epic race finishes backed up the headlining achievements. But this “golden era” perhaps wouldn’t have shone so brightly in our memories without that little extra bit of magic. Magic that looked something like fate.
Tectonic plates began shifting in F1 during the mid-80s when French firm Renault, which supplied engines to Lotus F1, faced financial hardship. During that period, Honda’s first wins came in with Lotus’s competitors, and then Renault left the sport temporarily in 1986. Honda filled the void for 1987, supplying Lotus with engines for the season.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Photo by: Neri Valenti
In a coup that previous season, Lotus had also secured the talents of a promising Toleman driver on the rise, a young man named Ayrton Senna. Honda and Senna joined forces at last. While Honda piled trophies in their cabinet over at Williams that year, Senna’s meteoric rise at Lotus continued in parallel. He won a pair of races in 1987 with the 1.5-liter V-6 turbocharged 99T and placed well in the drivers’ championship.
Senna leveled up again for 1988, landing the coveted seat alongside champion Alain Prost at Honda McLaren. The rest is, of course, history. The Prost/Senna rivalry proved explosive, spearheading one of F1’s most compelling eras from both narrative and competitive perspectives.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
All that history is exactly why the mere sight of this Honda McLaren, driven by the standout driver of his era, can make the hair on my forearms stand up like an imminent lightning strike.
Then there’s the Monaco factor. This car, this very one right here, won that most-romantic F1 Grand Prix.
Of course Senna won Monaco an astounding six times, so you could say Monaco-winning Senna cars basically grown on trees (I pulled a Senna Monaco winner out of my son’s ear this morning), but this car starred in perhaps the greatest Monaco win of all time, fending off Nigel Mansell’s charging Williams in the closing laps of the 1992 Grand Prix.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
From its re-entry in 1983 through the 1992 season—the year MP4/7 ran Monaco—Honda won 69 races, including five consecutive drivers championships from ‘87 onward.
It’s hard to imagine Senna as David, but within the context of that season, his victory felt miraculous, on par with a well-timed stone to Goliath’s dome. Mansell’s superior Williams harried MP4/7 (again, the exact one sitting right there before me) like a proverbial hornet, after an unplanned tire change upturned the race’s running order. The unexpected pit stop turned the typical Monaco procession—which is a foregone march from pole position to victory—on its head.
Over the final laps, an unflappable Senna stretched the width of his McLaren like two handfuls of pizza dough, blocking Mansell into and out of every corner. The Brazilian put on a masterclass in smooth, defensive driving.
What’s always stood out to me about that race is how Senna—who’d be first on your list of balls-out full-attack bushido-warrior pilots—drove with such patience in the face of overwhelming odds. That weekend, Mansell was the faster driver in a much faster car. Still, Senna held firm, corner after corner, until there was no race left to run.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
If those many Senna Monaco qualifying videos—the ones wherein our hero judo grapples the wheel through every hairpin—showed off his aggressive self-assurance, the way Senna fended off Mansell showed a less-championed side of the Brazilian: his wisdom.
Rather than disassemble the context of this race any further, this video does all the heavy lifting. You have my express permission to click the link and diverge from this story for a few minutes. Don’t worry, the link opens in a new window, so you can come right back to enjoy this unbelievable set of photos.
Great stuff, right?
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Senna’s 1992 Monaco win became so iconic, the video notes, that it’s regarded by F1 fans as the greatest Monegasque showdown of all time, codifying Senna as a noble hero for the thousandth time.
Alas, Monaco 1992 marked the beginning of the end. This was the third-to-last victory for Honda-powered McLarens of the era. Honda left the sport at the end of the 1992 season when the Japanese bubble economy burst. With it, one of the finest runs of form for any engine manufacturer in F1 history was laid to rest.
Of course that left Senna without Honda power for the first time in years, closing a special relationship, one of mutual reverence. Mansell, who was no stranger to winning under a Honda banner, once mentioned in an interview that Honda developed four to six different complete and separate engines per season, at astronomical cost.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Prost, in his memoir, accused Honda of giving Senna preferential treatment beyond that litany of experimental engines, equipping the Brazilian with special race-qualifying units that were significantly up on power compared to the field and even his French teammate at Honda McLaren.
Whatever the blend of talent, intrigue, and fate, Honda and Senna made history together. Three championships, 32 race wins, plus countless polls, knife-edged laps, and unforgettable moments. It’s almost overwhelming, the tidal wave of gratification and wonder piled on Senna in our memory.
But it’s also real. After some introductions and a tour of Griot’s Motors, owner Phillip Griot leads us back to MP4/7 where shop proprietor Forrest Davis and a group of techs have wheeled the McLaren. We stare in admiration for a minute before, sheepishly, I ask if we can remove the McLaren’s thin body cover to get a good look at the 3.5-liter Honda RA122E V-12.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Photo by: Neri Valenti
When the body cover sets against the ground and the engine comes into view, we all take a step closer. Like barely upright primates gathered around that first lick of flame, we pull close to the RA122E in rapt worship. There is much prodding and observation. There is also temptation.
One tech chimes up. Hey, does this thing have throttle bodies?
There’s just another set of screws and that gorgeous composite intake plenum… maybe if that came off we might gaze deep within the intake trumpets and find some deeply obscured truth.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
Honda was the last engine manufacturer to win an F1 World Championship with a V-12, in 1991. Designed by Osamu Goto and his team, this era marked a turning point from the more-analog racing machines, as semi-automated gearboxes, advanced data collection, computer simulation, and Williams’s active suspension changed the landscape of Formula 1 racing.
As a cresting wave to mark the end of one era before rolling back to the sea, this Honda V-12 in the back of a McLaren with Senna’s name on the side is a great one. I wouldn’t even say visiting this car bordered a religious experience. For me, visiting MP4/7 simply was one.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
For Honda’s V-12 sound that I hear ringing in my ears through all the decades and the silent shop, for all the memories Senna and Monaco and McLaren left us, I am grateful simply to see this car up close and unadorned. So how’d it even get here, splayed out like some gleaming Gundam Hope Diamond, so casually sat under these merciless shop lights in Tacoma, Washington?
It’s a long story I’d like to revisit, but one that ultimately matters less than what MP4/7 means to us, and the reassurance that these memories are being preserved by the enthusiasts with the right priorities. This Honda McLaren is a reminder that history is real and important to preserve. And that it could be lurking behind any shop door in America.
Photo by: Neri Valenti
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We’d like to offer a special thanks to Griot’s Motors for having us by to drool on their McLaren for the day, and especially for the hospitality of Phillip Griot, Forrest Davis, and the Griot’s team. Thank you for your kindness and shared enthusiasm for the subject matter.
If you’re a reader looking for a restoration ship that’s allergic to cutting corners, Griot’s Motors is one call away. Don’t take my word for it; Book a tour around their shop for yourself, should you need any further assurance. There’s no chance you’ll walk away disappointed by their professionalism, craft, and expertise.
