Rowan Atkinson’s McLaren cost £910k to repair

We like Rowan Atkinson here at Top Gear. Not only because - despite his protestations about his driving ability - he remains the second fastest celebrity to have lapped our little track, but also because he's a massive car nut. He owns a purple McLaren F1, for goodness sake.

And regular readers of The Internet will recall the Mr Bean star's well-documented accident in that lovely McLaren F1 a couple of years back, where, driving home on a rainy night, he accidentally hit a tree.

Thankfully, Rowan escaped with a minor shoulder injury, but the car was a wreck. Well, almost. Turns out it wasn't a write off, but a ruddy expensive fix. Speaking to Classic and Sports Car magazine, Atkinson revealed McLaren's Special Operations division (them responsible for the bonkers X-1 concept) took four weeks to estimate how much it would cost to repair the injured F1. £910,000, exactly.

But because modern McLaren F1s today still fetch well into the millions - like this one that sold for £3.5m - it was deemed a repair job, and so the insurance company paid out to fix his beloved motor. Meaning this is the most expensive insurance payout ever recorded in Britain. Yikes.

Rowan being Rowan, once fixed, he immediately did the right thing: drive it.

He said: "It depresses me that they are hidden away like investment art or gold. It is a crime not to use it."

Indeed, it is a crime not to use it. Don't forget, this very McLaren F1 - Rowan Atkinson's McLaren F1 - was graciously loaned to Mr Hammond when he went to the desert to size up the Bugatti Veyron's many horsepowers and many torques.

Mr Atkinson, TG salutes you.