Philippines 'JPJ' destroys rare McLaren 620R with a backhoe. Why though?

The Philippines Bureau of Customs (BOC) made a very public display of crushing a rare McLaren 620R recently, they even uploaded a video! The reason for the PDLA (public display of lack of affection) was to teach Filipinos a lesson for smuggling illegal cars into the country.

There are only 350 units of the McLaren 620R in the world. Based on the McLaren 570S GT4 race car, McLaren introduced the 620R as the street version of the race car back in 2019.

Under the bonnet lies a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 that produces 620 PS and 620 Nm. Each unit fetches $299,000 (about RM 1.25 million), so it is particularly hard to watch when customs brutally crushed the car with a backhoe and a forklift of all things!

The deliberate display of brutally demolishing cars is, like we’ve mentioned, BOC’s clear message to discourage the import of illegal cars. It also serves as a warning to aspiring importers.

But the McLaren isn’t the only rare car that was executed, 6 other cars were also lined up for the crush. These include a Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz SLK, Hyundai Genesis, Bentley Flying Spur, Lotus Elise, and a Toyota Solara convertible.

This isn’t the first time that the Bureau has publicly executed rare cars though. The BOC first started “publicly executing” exotic cars back in 2018. The most notable of which are a rare Corvette Stingray and an air-cooled Porsche 911.

We know what you’re thinking, there are better ways to dispose of the cars instead of destroying them demolition derby style.

But the BOC believes that auctioning off the cars would not have the same impact as permanently destroying the cars to discourage Filipinos from supporting grey market imports.

Well, the execution of these rare cars definitely made our hearts bleed. But the question is: will it make those with millions in their pockets shed a tear now that the world is deprived of a rare McLaren 620R?