Founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, McLaren Racing Limited, now trades as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, it is a British Formula One team based in Woking, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor but has also competed and won in the Indianapolis 500 and Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am). The team is the second oldest active team (after Ferrari) and one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won 180 races, 12 drivers’s championships and 8 constructors’s championships.
Today we are talking about the unveiling of the new Mc Laren P1, McLaren says the project has one simple goal: “To be the best driver’s car in the world on road and track.”
It is believed from the sources that,the model is likely to produce around 960bhp, that translates to a 0 to 62 mph time of just 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 239 mph with the help of a Formula 1-style kinetic energy recovery system (KERS).
The car will be unveiled at the Paris motor show next week, and this move from Mc Laren results in McLaren Automotive’s first appearance at an international show, especially, official as a design study. The final production version will be shown next year, but it is expected to look almost identical to the car shown here in the images. Coincidently with arrival of McLaren P1 they celebrate their 50th anniversary.
Antony Sheriff, managing director of the operation, says outright pace is not the objective of the new model. “Our aim is not necessarily to be the fastest in absolute top speed but to be the quickest and most rewarding series-production road car on a circuit. It is the true test of a supercar’s all-around ability and a much more important technical statement. It will be the most exciting, most capable, most technologically advanced and most dynamically accomplished supercar ever made.”
The car’s exterior has a similarity to the MP4-12C, with same deep windscreen, narrow A-pillars and relatively slim width, in fact the P1 is shorter than current Porsche 911.
According to the Mc Laren styling boss, Frank Stephenson, the dramatic styling of the car is a purposefull move from his side, to unravel the Technical nature of the car.
The significant aerodynamics on the exterior are carved out by McLaren’s wind tunnel experts, which are exposed in matte black, and the surfaces that have been styled are body coloured. The new headlamp design hints at the McLaren logo and is attached for the facelifted version of the 12C.
A modified version of MP4-12C’s carbon monocell is used in the P1, as well as the same door frame and mechanism is also used in the P1, although the door skin now extends on to the front wing. The weight of the car is said to be less than 1300kg, thanks to the outer panels which are made up of carbonfibre, and the rest of the understructure is expected to be different from the MP4-12C’s.
One of the intresting feaures of this car is that, according to the potential buyers, they saw this car at the Pebble Beach show at California, and that P1 will be using one of its kind, acrylic windows, replacing the coneventional glass frame, as because water rolls of this material every easily, which proves the point that there is no need for windscreen wipers.
This car will be an investment for buyers because, McLaren promises to come up with cars every year up till 2020, and this one, the P1 will be produced to a limited number of 500, and the cost of the car would be around $1.56 million. More updates will be soon coming out as soon as it will be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show this week.
