Patrick Comerford
The pink car is back outside the hotel in St Pancras. It had been missing for some months, but when we were walking from St Pancras to Euston Station last week I noticed it was back in its favourite spot in London once again.
The St Pancras London, Autograph Collection hotel is the frontispiece of St Pancras railway station. The station is one of the main rail termini in London and the final stop for international trains to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. The hotel re-opened in 2011, and occupies much of the former Midland Grand Hotel designed by George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) which opened in 1873 and closed in 1935.
The St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel opened to guests on 14 March 2011, and the formal grand opening was on 5 May – 138 years to the day after the hotel first opened in 1873. The hotel was transferred from Marriott’s Renaissance Hotels brand to its Autograph Collection brand three months ago (3 June 2025), and was renamed St Pancras London, Autograph Collection.
Meanwhile, the pink car is also back in front of the hotel. The £150,000 supercar can reach speeds of 200 mph, even though most of London is limited to 20 mph. The car seemed not to move from its parking spot for several years, and was there throughout the pandemic.
The McLaren is owned by a guest at the hotel, who permanently moved into one of the apartments before the start of the pandemic. The car soon became a landmark in the Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras area, even appearing on Google street view.
Since then, it has become the focus of many postings on social media, and it is now a local attraction with people taking ‘selfies’ beside it. But workers, residents and visitors alike were all baffled when the car went missing recently.
There were countless theories about the car and its owner. Some said the car was originally a different colour but was given a pink makeover by a specialist garage. Other rumours said it had been a gift to someone without a driving license holder, or suggested that the owner had moved into the hotel as a permanent resident shortly before the pandemic and could not return home due to travel restrictions.
Others suggest the hotel allows the supercar to be parked not in the lot but right at the entrance since because it attracts attention that is more valuable than expensive advertising.
Staff at the hotel then revealed that the owner is a permanent resident in one of the apartments in the hotel building. When the car went missing recently there was a fresh round of speculation until the same staff said the owner had just taken it on holiday.
The McLaren 570S is worth more than £150,000, and it has been outside the hotel since 2018 at least. It must need high insurance cover, particularly as it’s in the open on a busy street in London.
But the identity of the owner of the pink car still remains a mystery.
The owner is fortunate that someone has not damaged the vehicle. It looks quite provocative.
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