Hypercars: McLaren launches first road car since the F1, called the MP4-12C

McLaren built one of the three most amazing road cars of all time, those three being:

The Bugatti Veyron - fastest ever, but still comfortable and easy to drive, 1001 usable horsepower


Ferrari Enzo - Ultimate track car, not pretty, but amazing

McLaren F1 - Incredible performance, set the bar for the next 10 years, possibly the best drivers car of all time



The original F1 cost $1,o00,000 each. And McLaren lost money on every single one built (this is verified - the development costs and hand build costs were staggering). The car was built around a carbon fiber tub which made it both light and safe. The design has been copied by every supercar since. In fact, it is safe to say that modern supercars, the Ferraris, Lambos, Paganis, Koeingseggsssggss, Nobels, Bugattis, Gumperts, and Saleens all owe their design and existence to the F1. It was handbuilt, topped out at 240mph, had a crazy 1+2 seating arrangement with the driver in the middle, and is well remembered and well loved. Though the Enzo is faster round a track, it is basically a track special, and the Bugatti is amazing, but does not handle like the F1 or Enzo. The three are very different cars, and the F1 still stands as the best driver's car of all time.

McLaren has even admitted that the new car will not drive as well as its granddaddy. And it is its granddaddy, because in the middle was the Mercedes McLaren SLR:

Mercedes had partnered with McLaren in F1 racing, and so they built a car together. Long story short, the car was overpriced and not very good, and the two companies ended up hating each other. Merc stormed off to make a new gullwing (which looks very good) and McLaren said that it was going to become a supercar maker all on its own, and not just a few cars a year, but 1,000 a year.

And so was born the MP4-12C

Lets just get one thing right out there: this is a beautiful car. It looks a lot like the F458 Italia, which is complete coincidence because they came out within a few weeks of each other, it has elements of the F1, and a big heaping dose of curvy.

Basically the entire car is carbon fiber and composites, with the tub design everyone has been copying from the F1 developed further so that all the carbon fiber connects into the tub, making it lighter and stronger. There is a twin-turbo 3.8-liter V8 engine producing around 600 horsepower and 433 lb-ft of torque, which is a lot, but not mindblowing in today's market. It does claim the lowest CO2 per hp for any engine on the market, which is interesting but largely academic when you have 600hp. The engine is not a AMG unit as originally thought, it is developed by McLaren, showing how far the falling out with Merc has gone.

The car is expected to cost about $260,000 to start with, before the endless variants and specials and options. Which is more expensive than a Ferrari, but this is meant to be lighter and better. Whether it is remains to be seen, but one can hope.

My one major complaint? The name. What kind of name is MP4-12C? McLaren says that it is related to how it names its F1 cars, but it actually then would line up with the F1 car from 1999, which did not do that well and is 10 years old.

So why the mouthful of alphabet soup? I have no idea, and I think it is incredibly dumb. The 12 makes me think its a v12, but its not, its a v8. The MP4 part just makes me think of iTunes, mp3s and napster. This is for all intents and purposes your first consumer car, you want to sell 1,000 a year, you need to draw in potential seriously rich buyers, who will then have to go around at parties and do the following:

"Oh, is that a Ferrari?"
"No, its a McLaren"
"Really, have not seen one before, what's it called?"
"An MP4 dash 12..uhh c.. well um.. you.. you see they name them after F1 cars, its really.. its very nice.. its a very nice car"

There are only two outcomes to this: either the McLaren owner walks away embarrassed, or the other speaker's eyes will glaze over at the mention of anything with a name that sounds like an air conditioner and then wander back to get another glass of champagne.

In other words, I want this car, but I would probably pretend it was called the F1000, or the name it was referred to in development - the P11. Though S11 might be better.

On the name, and the name alone, I call: