In the long human story of machines built to transcend ordinary motion, McLaren's W1 arrives as a rare artifact — 399 examples, already spoken for, now confirmed to reach Australian roads. It is the latest heir to a lineage that began with the F1 in the 1990s, each generation asking how close a road car can come to the absolute. That only a handful of people will ever commission one, and that they already have, says something quiet but telling about the relationship between extreme engineering and human desire.