We are, let's face it, absolutely nuts about Formula One here at eDrive Towers, so the unveiling today of McLaren's 2013 challenger, the MP4-28, was getting us up to boiling point pretty easily. But then, just as the presentation was getting going, all thoughts of F1 and the new racer went, pfffft, out of our brains as Jenson Button pulled up in the stunning new P1 supercar.
It was almost exactly 20 years ago that we car enthusiasts were getting all girlishly excited about the prospect of McLaren's first ever road car, the original F1. That went on to be the fastest car in the world, and to win Le Mans at its first attempt. So just imagine how excited we are at the prospect of this, the P1, McLaren's successor to the F1...
Just 500 of this amazing looking car will be built, and while its engine is structurally similar to the 3.8-litre V8 turbo that's in the existing MP4-12-C supercar, not only will the P1 get a power boost, it will also get a hybrid KERS setup that will boost power again for overtaking bursts. Quite what you'd need an overtaking burst to get past in one of these remains unexplained. A Veyron perhaps? Anyway, expect power to be at least 750-800bhp, and with all the active aerodynamics and computer controlled suspension that you'd expect from McLaren. And judging from the still-camouflaged styling (why, when they showed the car un-disguised at the Paris Motor Show last year?) it will look remarkably like being violated by a Le Mans racer when it does overtake you, boost or no boost. Enjoy the photos and check out the video too. It spits fire...
“Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.”
When a 27-year-old Bruce McLaren penned those words in 1964, his new company, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, was less than a year old. In those days, Bruce’s vision was shared by fewer than half a dozen loyal souls, who slogged across the world to race his self-made cars. Nowadays, the McLaren Group employs more than 2000 people, all of whom still share Bruce’s ideals of combining sportsmanship with solid engineering practice and cutting-edge technical expertise. On September 2nd 2013, the McLaren Group will celebrate its 50th anniversary. If you were to follow Bruce’s words to the letter, there’d be little time for recollection, but on the eve of McLaren's half-century there’s surely time for the briefest of breaths and the opportunity to take a look behind at the sweeping vista built up in the indelible shadow of its founder. The McLaren Formula 1 team has become a global household name; since its arrival in the sport, at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, it has won more races (182) than any other constructor, started from pole position 155 times and scored 151 fastest laps. In 2012, McLaren achieved the fastest-ever time for a Formula 1 pitstop (2.31s at Hockenheim), recorded its 58th consecutive points-scoring finish, an all-time record, and has now led more than 10,000 racing laps.
McLaren went to the Indy 500 for the first time in 1970, returning with greater strength until we won the USA’s most famous motor race in 1974 with Johnny Rutherford, and repeated the feat with Rutherford in 1976, too.
Today, every single car in Formula 1, the Indycar Series and NASCAR relies upon McLaren Electronics’ standardised ECUs to control their engines and feed data back to the garage.
Introduced back in 1993, the McLaren F1 road car has lost none of its unique appeal and is still considered by many to be automotive world’s definitive supercar. To this day, it remains the fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world. In GTR racing guise, it won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, also scooping third, fourth and fifth places on its debut in 1995.
Since its launch in 2010, McLaren Automotive has developed into a world-class road car manufacturer, successfully developing and building the 12C and the 12C Spider high performance sports cars. Both models exploit an unparalleled understanding of carbon fibre and electronic driver systems to create a groundbreaking product of unequalled weight, strength, performance and driveability.
It’s all a long way from that small south London lock-up back in 1963. But Bruce wouldn’t wish to merely look backwards without looking forwards, too. Accordingly, echoes of the past will reverberate throughout a series of unique events and celebrations to be held across the anniversary year. From the McLaren 50 logos on team shirts, through a specially commissioned heritage video features, to the launch of our new MP4-28 Formula 1 car with Jenson Button and Sergio Perez on January 31st, every lap, every corner, every mile and every road taken will be an opportunity to revel in McLaren’s present while recalling its 50-year past. Ron Dennis CBE, executive chairman, McLaren Group and McLaren Automotive, said: “McLaren’s history is long and storied, but McLaren’s legacy is harder to define – and that’s because it’s still being vividly written every day by the dedicated men and women who work at the McLaren Technology Centre. “Bruce McLaren wrote the beginning of the story, and the legend is going to continue for many years to come. I’m only a chapter, not the book, and I want other people to come in and write their own chapters as time goes by.” “This is a book that’s still being written, and that, perhaps, is the greatest legacy of McLaren.”
Ford is planning to bring lightweight carbon parts to cars like the Focus, even though currently such parts would be prohibitively expensive.
Ford is showing off this, a current Focus fitted with an experimental carbon-fibre bonnet, which weighs about half as much as a conventional steel panel. Generally, carbon is about five times stronger than steel for an equivalent weight of about a third as much. Pretty impressive, pretty expensive. But that could be all changing. Companies like McLaren and BMW are currently at the cutting edge of carbon research and are finding ways of making carbon components, and even entire carbon vehicles, for a much more affordable price. Indeed, if the labour-intensive nature of current carbon-fibre design and build systems can be reduced, then the actual raw material cost is lower than that of, say, aluminium. “Reducing a vehicle’s weight can deliver major benefits for fuel consumption but a process for fast and affordable production of carbon fiber automotive parts in large numbers has never been available”, said Inga Wehmeyer, advanced materials and processes research engineer in Ford’s European Research Centre. “By partnering with materials experts through the Hightech.NRW research project, Ford is working to develop a solution that supports cost efficient manufacturing of carbon fiber components.”
Anthony Sheriff, MD of McLaren Automotive, the road-car making arm of the legendary F1 team, has no doubts that carbon is the future even for mainstream cars:
"Basically everything that’s important to the driving experience, strength for crash safety, weight for speed and efficiency, rigidity for handling, are improved significantly with carbon fibre. That’s the case whether you’re talking about a mid-engined 200mph sports car or a city car.
"I think we already see a number of cars at lower price points that have have woken up to the point that with innovation you can drive the production costs lower. And you are going to see other sports cars, and very interestingly, hybrid and electric city cars using carbon fibre. Especially on electric cars, the weight saving has an enormous benefit because if you have a light electric car, you can have a smaller battery and therefore you save additional weight and additional cost.
"Before you find it in a Ford Focus? Well, it’s not 50 years but neither is it 5 years. I’d say its 10 year before we start to see significant use of carbon fibre in such cars." That tallies with Ford's plans, which seek to reduce the weight of an average family car by as much as 340kg by the end of the decade.
