MOTOWN MACDOWN 2012 MANUAL

Add a seamless seven-speed, dual-clutch automated manual transmission and the McLaren casually puts up supercar numbers: 0 to 97 kilometers per hour (0 to 60 miles per hour) in 3 seconds and a top speed of 330 km/h (205 mph).ĭihedral doors do without old-fashioned door handles: Sweep a hand along a sensor and the doors pivot upward with one-finger ease the doors open less widely than conventional ones. A compact 441-kilowatt (592-horsepower), twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V-8 lies smack dab in the car’s center of gravity.

So the McLaren will, in theory anyway, feel as tight and new in 10 years as it does the day it leaves the showroom. And carbon fiber is more resistant to fatigue than metal. Because the shell resists twisting so well, the suspension can be optimized to provide the best possible ride and handling. That light weight also means low emissions: The McLaren produces less than 300 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven, topping its class.

The hollow carbon structure forms a “safety survival cell” akin to that of an F1 car, with aluminum crumple zones in front and in the rear that are easy to replace. The entire car weighs 1301 kg, nearly 80 kg less than its main competitor, the Ferrari 458 Italia. Such strong, lightweight bones are key to the new car’s remarkable structural rigidity and agile yet compliant suspension. The one-piece tub, called a MonoCell, takes a mere 4 hours to build and weighs 75 kilograms, less than many passengers. Bundled fibers are stuffed into a huge mold, epoxy resin is injected, and heat and pressure do the rest. By 2004, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren had chopped that to 400 hours.įor the MP4-12C, McLaren adapted a process called resin transfer molding, which cuts fabrication time by 99 percent. Back in 1992, building just the F1’s “tub,” which surrounds the driver, took 3000 hours. Until recently, woven sheets of carbon fiber had to be laid up by hand in a mold, impregnated with resin, then cured for hours in an autoclave oven. By 1992, the legendary three-seat, $1 million McLaren F1 became the first road-going car with a carbon-based chassis.

Every McLaren since has been carbon-fiber intensive, including the MP4/4 racers driven by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, which won an unparalleled 15 of 16 Formula One races in 1988. The company built and raced the first carbon-fiber Formula One monocoque back in 1981. And while you could buy 10 Hyundai Sonatas for that price, recent breakthroughs have McLaren-along with mega-automakers such as BMW-confident that large carbon‑fiber components will eventually trickle down to mass-market cars. The starting price of US $231 400 is by far the lowest of any car ever draped on a carbon-fiber structure. Here “democratization” means that it’s now affordable for the merely rich. The company owes its achievement-and its position in this year’s Top 10 list-to its democratization of a weight-saving technology that had been limited to the ultrarich: carbon-fiber construction. For all its Formula One credentials, for all its flashy virility and hair-trigger handling, the McLaren also sets a new supercar standard for inner peace.įor the MP4-12C, McLaren refused to accept traditional trade-offs between performance and comfort, and that’s what makes this model the year’s most intriguing new sports car. They might not agree (and I’m sorry if I busted up their meditation), but the McLaren’s essential nature rings in tune with this Buddhist temple.

Motown macdown 2012