For sale: two McLaren MP4-12Cs owned by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button

Two McLaren MP4-12Cs are coming up for auction next month, offering keen McLaren and supercar enthusiasts a chance to snap up a piece of history quite cheaply. One’s estimated to sell for between €175k-€225k, while the other might go for between €125k-€150k.

Oh, and they were originally owned by Sir Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, who boast eight Formula One world championships between them. Safe to say you’re getting provenance by the truckload.

Naturally with two F1 champs on the books – Lewis in ’08, Jenson in ’09 – McLaren turned to its factory hotshoes for input. Lewis, for example, requested the steering wheel to be thinner and for the paddle-shifters to more closely mimic the ones in his F1 car.

Underneath, you’ll remember the car that sounded like a posh fax machine boasted a carbon fibre ‘MonoCell’ tub, a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 with 592bhp, and a 0-62mph time of around three seconds.

Reaction upon its release may have been lukewarm – not least because it lived alongside the Ferrari 458 Italia which was boiling – but it’s a good, stupendously fast and powerful supercar that marked a turning point for Woking.

Both MP4s were gifted to Hamilton and Button by former boss Ron Dennis, Hamilton getting his in March 2012. That’s the ‘volcano red’ car above. He configured it himself in Woking, applying a few carbon fibre options like the front spoiler, rear diffuser and mirror casings.

It also gets the optional five-spoke wheels in satin grey and tinted windows. This car, don’t forget, was Lewis’s personal ride and even featured in a music video.

Jenson’s MP4 is actually his second – his first one went back to the factory as a development car, so he chose a second one in white, trimmed with red and black leather inside and a few carbon fibre options.

Hamilton’s left-hand-drive McLaren has covered just 8,500km, and is the more expensive of the two. Button’s has done 12,000km, is also in left-hand-drive, and is the cheaper of the pair.

His is offered without reserve, and if you’re canny/minted, you could snap up both - via Broad Arrow’s Villa d’Este sale – for around the same price as a well-specced 750S.