on the sidewalls

Behind the impeccably clean glass of the McLaren Technology Centre, Ron Dennis and his band of obsessive men today unveiled a new supercar, a whole new supercar company and a very compelling reason not to buy a Ferrari 458 Italia or Mercedes SLS AMG. Not bad for a day’s work. The first of three models they will eventually put into production, the sparklingly orange MP4-12C was the centre of attention, being shown off in the flesh for the first time. The stats are stunning.

Geek Table:

Price – £175k target
Power – 592bhp @ 7,000rpm
Maximum Engine Speed – 8,500rpm
Torque – 443lb ft @ 3,000rpm. 80% peak from 2,000rpm to 6,500rpm
Weight – 1300kg dry. Estimate less than 1400kg kerb
CO2 – less than 300g/km
Top Speed – more than 200mph
0-62mph – around 3.4 secs
0-124mph – less than 10 secs
1/4 mile – around 11 secs
100mph – 0mph – 30 metres. Honestly. You’ll be sick out your eye holes.

Other highlights are the 7 speed ‘Seamless Shift’ double clutch transmission, one-piece carbon fibre ‘Monocell’ chassis, a 7” portrait touch screen that controls the 1.6Ghz on board computer with sat nav, wi-fi, Bluetooth and Meridien stereo, and a beautifully ergonomic interior.

As amazing as all the headline facts are, the really impressive nuggets of information on the MP4-12C come from deeper beneath the surface. The little insights that demonstrate how and why the McLaren really is lighter, faster, greener and more powerful than normal humans would think possible to achieve.

Lightweight Wiring and Lithium-ion Battery

Instead of using plain old round copper, the McLaren uses hexagonal shaped wiring that’s part aluminium, saving almost 4kg. Being hexagonal, the wires can also nestle more closely together, saving space in the interior. The battery’s no standard lead-acid brick either – it’s a lithium-ion unit, saving another 10kg.

Crash Test Repetition

Usually, manufacturers build prototypes for the sole purpose of being crashed. Once the smash has taken place, telemetry been read and results recorded the prototype is done with. But the McLaren MP4-12C has proved to be a bit different. A prototype was subjected to a standard 56kph smash, but no damage was inflicted on the carbon fibre chassis – just the deformable aluminium structure at the front. So they put it into another test. Still no damage to the chassis; not even a cracked windscreen. The same chassis was eventually subjected to three identical crash tests… it’s clearly pretty strong.

Four Hour Chassis Build

The chassis isn’t just rigid and light – it’s also incredibly quick to put together, taking just four hours. For comparison, the McLaren F1’s carbon tub took 3,000 hours. The one-piece, 80kg mould is also 25% stronger and 25% lighter than an equivalent aluminium chassis. Cripes.

Embossed Magnesium Dashboard Badge

While it’s clearly a very nice tale to brag about at a press conference, the dashboard badge story is a good one. Obviously, McLaren wanted their logo on the dashboard – but didn’t want to go to the effort and weight of putting on a badge. So instead of sticking on a little McLaren decal, they decided to emboss their emblem into the one-piece magnesium structure that makes up the dash. Which saved them a handy 2.4g… and you can’t even see it.

Perfect Driving Position & Skinny Steering Wheel

From the offset, the car has been built around the driver. It might not have an F1-style centre seat, but the pedals, steering wheel and driving chair have all been plumbed in to be perfectly aligned. Even sitting in a prototype that can’t move feels spot on – right down to the thin rimmed, perfectly sized steering wheel that tingles your hands without even a wheel being turned.

Two Handy Test Drivers

Both Lewis and Jenson have driven the car around Goodwood, and while you wouldn’t expect them to say it felt like a bag of bolts, both of them sounded genuinely enthusiastic. Lewis was very pleased, for example, that the gearchange paddles were very similar to his F1 car – they pivot at the wheel, so you can change by either pulling left and right to change down or up, or by pushing or pulling either to do the same thing.

Yeah yeah, so all this sounds a bit sycophantic – but the glee comes from facts. Hearing Chairman Ron Dennis and MD Anthony Sheriff explain the details, talk about the ruthless perfectionism, bespoke design of absolutely everything and the plain and simple statistics, it’s hard not to get carried away. And having sat in it, looked at it, seen it being made and spoken to some of the people that craft it, the MP4-12C is much more than just statistical boasting. It’s a car in which you can feel passion and perfection running through the core. A machine to respect and get all sweatily lusty for. Haven’t wanted a car this badly since turning 17.

As you already know, McLaren today unveiled their new McLaren MP4-12C supercar. As part of the super-fantastic PR reveal bonanza, they showed this video of Lewis and Jenson having a lovely time driving around Goodwood.  Watch it, then read our coverage of the car launch here.

At 10:30am on Thursday 18th March (which is, to most of you, today), the motoring alchemists of McLaren are going to unveil their MP4-12C supercar. Just like every other car-loving website in the world, we’ve been kind enough to link  live stream of the event – so you can watch it as it happens.

We tried to embed it, but couldn’t work out how. So click HERE to watch it, or follow the event on our Twitter

McLaren’s well groomed men are bringing their new £170k MP4-12C supercar into its final stages of development, with track testing taking place at Spain’s version of Millbrook – Applus IDIADA. Whereas previous MP4-12C development cars have been produced to test individual components, these new ‘XP Beta’ machines are far closer to being production ready, with a revised engine, new gear ratios, more efficient cooling, new suspension geometry and upgraded electrical architecture.

According to McLaren, the testing and development process involves a core team of around 25 technicians poring over the car 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a testing programme they claim is as at least as intense as a Formula One car’s. Not only that, but Programme Director Mark Vinnels is already confident of the car’s ability: ‘The benchmark competitor vehicles we have tested become nervous and twitchy at higher speed, but the 12C feels more stable than anything I have driven. Because the bump rejection is so good, the ride is smooth and the steering is solid.’

In this video, Mark Vinnels and Chief Test Driver Chris Goodwin explain the development process while driving the car on road and track. As hyperbolic teasers go, it’s up with the best…

Here’s hoping the matt black vinyl wrap of the development cars makes it onto an options list…

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Toyota released more details of their sticky accelerator problems – 1.8 million cars across Europe are being recalled, UK models listed above. Pictures and details of the Carlsson C25 emerged – a 743bhp supercar based on the Mercedes CL. And McLaren revealed their ‘MP4-25’ 2010 Formula 1 car, with Jenson and Lewis both repeating how they’re looking forward to working TOGETHER.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Button was confirmed as Hamilton’s chief visor-wiper/team mate at McLaren, Raikkonen mumbled about having next year off and the world rumoured about Schumacher driving for Mercedes GP. Also, new GM Europe boss, British Nick Reilly, spoke some rare positive words about keeping Ellesmere Port and Luton plants open, as well as potentially producing the Vauxhall Ampera in one of them.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

The Germans took Brackley, as Mercedes bought a majority stake in Brawn GP, renamed it Mercedes GP and were said to be considering hiring the disconcertingly Aryan Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld to drive, with Button rumoured to be joining Hamilton at McLaren. In duller news, Fiat released a new Doblo and European cars sales were up 11.2% over 2008.

With a lot of mags getting their first drives of the Ferrari 458 Italia, McLaren’s MP4-12C was missing out on some of the hyperbolic coverage its used to. So to make amends, McLaren made a little behind-the-scenes film featuring engineers, test drivers and technicians all chatting about their new baby. It’s pretty interesting… and not just because it gives us the first ever chance to hear it being ragged.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out smaller.

Lewis Hamilton pretended not to look threatened when he heard rumours of Jenson Button being his McLaren team-mate next year. The GM bosses who make more money than the company they run accepted pay cuts of up to 85%. And French motorbiking mentalists Lazareth bolted a Rover V8 into the middle of a Renault Twingo… and still haven’t stopped laughing.

Today in 60 words… it’s all you need to read.

Lee Noble, who actually has nothing to do with Noble cars any more, grabbed a piece of the McLaren hype-cake by announcing he’ll also be building a 650bhp two seat supercar. Toyota started the globe’s largest ever game of spot-the-difference by facelifting the Auris. And Ken Block hinted he might stop playing games and join the proper WRC next year.

Toyota Auris before facelift…

…And after, we think:

Green is still only cool in theory

It’s getting boring really. For approximately basically ages, manufacturers have been promising to build the insane hybrid concept cars they bandy around at motorshows. We’re teased with teardrop shapes, smooth glasshouses and mpg figures in the hundreds – and then consistently disappointed.

VW were showing off their 1L concept car – it looks like a drop of mercury, has a 0.8 litre diesel engine with electric motor and will do about 180mpg. They bragged about producing the diesel engine by basically chopping a current 1.6 litre diesel in half, and told us it was definitely ready to build. That’s great. But the only actual green car they had to offer was the new Polo Bluemotion – 70-odd mpg, no electric engine and a bit of a dull face.

or this…

The same was true at BMW – they teased us with their Efficient Dynamics Vision concept which, thanks to a combination of diesel and electricity, has the speed of an M3 but CO2 emissions of just 99g/km. But the latest green car we can actually drive? A 320d that does 57.4 mpg and definitely isn’t as fast as an M3. Hilarious.

or this…

It’s about time concept car one-upmanship was actually put into practice; we’ve been teased for too long.

British rivals were born

The Bentley Mulsanne and Rolls Royce Ghost were unleashed onto each other. The Bentley is unforgivably ugly, but has the pedigree of being an all-new design:

The Rolls looks awesome, but is basically a BMW 7 Series talking in a posh English accent. Bentley pedigree versus Rolls Royce style… we’d take the Rolls – it’s got a V12 over the Bentley’s V8.

GM left a nasty taste

The new Vauxhall Astra and Saab 9-5 were revealed – both GM designs that have now been left to their new respective owners Magna and Koenigsegg. Unfortunately, both cars are perfect examples of what GM do best… the bare minimum.

The Astra, which will be UK built, fares marginally better with a tidy Insignia-aping interior and bland solidity outside, but the Saab looked very sorry indeed. Again, the interior fares better with the usual Saaby ergonomics and materials, but outside is more of a facelift than re-style. Both cars go on sale in the middle of 2010 and will hopefully be profitable enough to put their new owners in better financial health than GM – in the case of the Astra, some Northerner’s jobs are relying on it.

The battle of the 21^st Century is coming

Days before the show, McLaren announced their new MP4-12C supercar. It’s a bespoke McLaren design, features a one-piece carbon fibre chassis and every single component (3.8 litre twin turbo V8 engine included), will be built by McLaren themselves. It’ll crack 0-62mph in under 4 secs, has 600bhp and will top 200mph – all for £150k when it goes on sale in 2011.

Despite not even being at Frankfurt, it made Ferrari and Mercedes look silly.

Ferrari unveiled their actually quite nice looking 458 Italia, and Mercedes their power-snouted SLS AMG – both the same price, performance and power as the McLaren, but too flash looking in comparison. Frank Stephenson’s 12C design is deliberately low-key – predicting that the age of the noisy, shouty supercar is over as well all get swallowed up by eco-modesty.

Looking at all three, it’s hard not too agree – while the McLaren isn’t as immediate as the other two it already looks timeless and classy. It’s like the SLS and 458 already trying too hard to beat it. The Merc and the Ferrari go on sale next year – our money would be not to buy either until the McLaren is released, unless you’ve got a chestwig.

The Jaguar XJ still has a squiffy rear quarter

It’s a British Ian Callum design, so we’re all expecting it to be a grower not a shower, but it’s taking its time. The front looks mean, sleek and powerful. But that back… well, it looks like a Hyundai. For the time being. Hopefully, Callum’s designed in so much ‘acquaintance time’ that the day it goes on sale (in December 2009) will be the first day it actually looks good.

The future does exist

Despite every car maker selling wildly reduced numbers of cars, think half the quantity of two years ago for some, clever financial men have made sure their companies can still afford to make cars. Quite how they’ve done it is anyone’s guess, but after speaking to various industry types, there was a feeling of optimism that was missing from the last Geneva show just six months ago. Back then, there was panic – when would the customers come back? What will we do with the cars we’ve already built and can’t sell? How will we afford our ludicrous research and development costs? When will sales pick back up to where they were in 2007?

The optimism hasn’t come from a pick-up in sales, or a change in fortune – it’s come from accepting the grim reality that things will never be as they were. Sales will probably never reach the dizzy pre-crisis heights. Now that manufacturers have come to terms with that, the panic has subsided and they can settle into just working with the funds and sales they have. With forecasts adjusted to reality instead of crystal ball optimism, and with the dead-wood sold off or downsized, car makers can focus on looking forward and working instead of looking back and worrying.