A Replacement for the Mclaren F1 - Twenty Years On

A fairly detailed " first drive" in the new McL P1.

http://www.autocar.c...st-drive-review

To my mind a vastly more impressive car than the over weight Veyron (1450 kg vs about 1900kg) and it looks really nice too.

A lot of technology inside it , I bet the wiring diagramm is pretty big!

Although its uk pounds 866K( with 20% tax)  it's actally a bit cheaper than the original F1 after inflation.

At 375 units Mcl will pull in about $400M in revenue so it should make profit. Thats about the same as selling 25,000 entry level cars.

Oops, sorry for title typos - does anybody know how to edit a title please?

Yawn. How many times have we heard that there will finally be a replacement for the McLaren F1? Why do we even need one? Does McLaren, having produced such a brilliant car all those years ago, have an ongoing inferiority complex that they are trying repeatedly to conquer?

I note that it is ridiculously low to the ground and doesn't have the driver in the middle. Two key differences to the F1, and for me, two things that made the F1 a car I will long aspire (likely in futility, but you never know what's 'round the corner...) to owning. Nick Mason's famous whinge to Gordon Murray about repeatedly breaking off his F40's front wing was most pertinent. What's the point in having a gorgeous hypercar if you can't don your Armani and Tag Heuer and go show it off because you're afraid of getting thoroughly stuck on a speed hump?

For me the F1 is a lot like Michael Jackson's album Thriller. Both are old now, but both are still utterly fresh today, and timeless. Both are examples of getting things very, very right. Those things don't come around very often in our lifetimes.

I refer here only to the original version of the F1 with the creature comforts, audio system, luggage space, etc - not the LM version like the one Mason ended up owning, or the full-on racers.

Apologies, this ended up a bit more sappy than I intended. I don't have feeling like this about very many cars.

I will risk saying that the modern supercars have become too clinical in their development. You will never ever see a book on the development of the P1 such as Driving ambition (the book on F1) simply because the P1 is no a product of a manically obsessive engineer and a small group, but rather of a large organisation.

IMHO, today the only company that shares the same design and engineering priciples that stood behind the F1 is Pagani...

Also, I like the Aston martin One-77 because if it's crazy bespoke design..

Does McLaren, having produced such a brilliant car all those years ago, have an ongoing inferiority complex that they are trying repeatedly to conquer?

By that logic, Ferrari should have packed up shop after building the 250GTO and turned to making toasters or something.

Move on, the F1 is old history now.  I have seen the prototype P1s testing around Woking area and it is an impressive and exciting car.

IMHO, today the only company that shares the same design and engineering priciples that stood behind the F1 is Pagani...

Perhaps also Koenigsegg.

Anyway, nowhere did I say that I didn't appreciate the P1. I do. It's a new car with different objectives to the F1, though, and I wish people would stop billing things as F1 replacements.

I am very impressed that they kept it under 1500kg.

Well all supercars are toys for spoilt boys obviously, and aren't serious cars.  Do the objective numbers really even matter?  If you believe they do, this Mac has to be gauged a full success I suppose, and if you are of the view that supercars are artworks that happen to be capable of hauling you and a friend very fast then objective judgments are essentially impossible, à chacun ses goûts.

Considering most supercars being made entirely out of carbonfiber spesially the Koenigsegg... they are imo extremely heavy cars..

One car that does impress me is the La Ferrari being hybrid and all.

Edited by MatsNorway, 21 January 2014 - 20:44.

 

 

IMHO, today the only company that shares the same design and engineering priciples that stood behind the F1 is Pagani...

Also, I like the Aston martin One-77 because if it's crazy bespoke design..

Tesla ?

I do not buy into all that electric car "cr$p" but I do have an utmost respect for them.

Considering most supercars being made entirely out of carbonfiber spesially the Koenigsegg... they are imo extremely heavy cars..

 

 

well, chassis weight is only a part of the total.

Since the super-hyper-ultra exotic Sports GT has already been done to both its ultimate expression (McLaren F1) and absurd grotesque (Veyron) how about trying something else next?

Like the ultimate high-end five-passenger luxury sedan?

Or how about going the other direction altogether, something in a lightweight? Like a cost-no-object Lotus 7 or Ariel Atom? A modern-day Bugatti 35, if you will? 

I couldn't afford any of these cars either, but they might be interesting to fantasize about.  

Koenigsegg and Bugatti is considered hypercars more commonly supercars ++ others. Personally i prefer hypercars as they are a step above cars like Aventadors++

Also the Koenigsegg is just a 5L+ who is one of the absolute lightest in terms of hp/kg ratio. I think the weight has some to do with it being a targa/convertible as well as swedish made. The La Ferrari is neither.

Edited by MatsNorway, 22 January 2014 - 16:06.