The company filings for the McLaren Group which revealed the company has been drawn into an investigation by the UK government, also reveal that the company has sold off a number of its historic cars.

"In 2017, disposals of Heritage assets with a carrying value of £3.3m were made from inventory," reads the filing. "Sales proceeds on these disposals were £30.9m.

"McLaren Racing Limited has a collection of heritage vehicles, made up of 152 racing cars, 4 F1 road cars, 4 historic vehicles and 20 spare F1 racing car monocoques. The collection is held in several locations; at the McLaren Technology Centre, most of which is on display to visitors and employees; on display at Donington Park Race Circuit; at McLaren Automotive Dealerships; and the remainder is held in secure storage. These assets are held on the balance sheet at cost.

"Managing such a large collection takes significant resource and during 2017 executive management of McLaren Technology Group Limited and McLaren Racing Limited made the decision to establish a programme to sell a specific and limited number of these cars to specialist collectors from around the world. Those cars highlighted for sale have been reclassified from heritage assets to inventory pending recognition of the sale in line with the revenue recognition accounting policy."

Just over a year ago, as Ron Dennis awaited the £275m in lieu of his 25% stake in the company, it was revealed that McLaren had secured £37.5m on 13 rare and historic F1 cars including a 1981 MP4/1-1 (the first McLaren MP4), a 1988 all-conquering MP4/4-1 a 1993 MP4/8-8 (Ayrton Senna's last winning McLaren) and a very rare white Lamborghini powered 1993 MP4/8-1 which was on loan to the Lamborghini Museum.

As the filings show, the identity of the cars that have been sold and their purchasers are not known. Another mystery, of course, is why some media outlets - especially those with close ties to McLaren - don't appear to have picked up on any of this, though the accounts were filed a fortnight ago.

Anyway, while Dennis was paid off and new investment found in the form of Charles Latifi, the accounts reveal that the McLaren Group has seen revenue fall 3% to £871m and a £1.3m profit turned into a £66m pre-tax loss.