McLaren MP4-12C 2011 Review

McLaren.Inc - McLaren is most notable for winning no fewer than 163 Formula 1 grand-prix races and 12 drivers’ titles, a record surpassed only by Ferrari. So it’s only fitting that McLaren is now seriously going after its Italian arch rival off the racetrack with this new mid-engined road car, the MP4-12C, which aims squarely at Ferrari’s F430 and forthcoming 458 Italia.

The car is being designed and produced by McLaren Automotive, one part of the McLaren Group of companies that also includes McLaren Racing, best known for fielding the company’s Formula 1 team. McLaren Automotive’s managing director is Anthony Sheriff, an American who spent eight years as the chief of product development at Fiat. The car weighs less than 3100 pounds, he says.

Its structure is novel. The windshield frame bolts onto the tub and has a cast aluminum base, a stamped aluminum surround, and boron-steel tubes running through it. The rear roll hoop is made from steel, while the front fenders, the hood, and the roof are aluminum. The suspension uses upper and lower control arms all around; the so-called “Proactive Chassis Control System” features electronically adjustable anti-roll bars. Carbon-ceramic brakes are available, but McLaren opts for cast-iron rotors with aluminum hubs as standard equipment.

The car has electrohydraulic steering because Sheriff says that an electric system doesn’t give the kind of feel McLaren wants. It has what is claimed to be the lowest crankshaft centerline of all mid-engined supercars and a dry-sump oil system to keep the center of gravity low. The seven-speed twin-clutch transmission reduces the rear overhang for both styling and handling reasons. The mufflers are mounted high for packaging and crash purposes. McLaren put the radiators behind the passenger compartment, which allows for an unexpectedly large trunk.

The exterior shape was optimized by McLaren for aerodynamic performance in the wind tunnel, particularly behind the roof, where the aim was to ensure smooth airflow over the rear wing. The driver can also set it at 45 degrees to improve rear-end downforce at high speed.

Outward visibility is terrific for a mid-engined car. McLaren Automotive is housed in the same high-tech building as the F1 team, near Woking, not far from London. “We are planning to be a sustainable car company,” Sheriff says, “with at least two models and three variants. We have world-class engineering-and-development teams, as well as an in-house design team headed by Frank Stephenson, who was head of design at Ferrari and Maserati from 2002 to 2005 and also styled the Mini Cooper. McLaren expects to sell about 4000 cars by 2015 as more of its models enter production. This new car will be sold worldwide, and McLaren has started to look for dealers.