McLaren opens its doors

It has spent years beating Ferrari on the track, and now British F1 outfit McLaren is set to take on the Italian supercar maker out on the world's fastest motorways and mountain passes, too.

McLaren Group executive chairman Ron Dennis launched his all-new McLaren Automotive Group last week, claiming his new MP4-12C had massive technical advantages over key rivals from both Ferrari and its fellow Italian supercar maker, Lamborghini.

While refusing to confirm pricing for first McLaren Automotive sports car, McLaren executives hinted it would be priced very close to Ferrari's new 458 Italia and Lamborghini's LP560-4 Gallardo.

While the Ferrari and Lamborghini are both based around aluminium space frames, the new, twin-turbo V8 12C will be built on a one-piece, carbon-fibre tub, similar in concept to the structure every Formula One car uses -- even the red, Italian ones.

As for fast, McLaren Automotive's managing director, Antony Sheriff, insisted it would hit 100km/h in less than three seconds, fly past 200km/h in under 10 seconds and comfortably exceed 300km/h.

"We are absolutely confident we will win a comparison test with a Ferrari," he insisted.

But Dennis (pictured in suit) went further, claiming the 12C would be faster, lighter, stronger, better built, more reliable, more comfortable and environmentally cleaner than its Italian rivals, confirming the 440kW rocket would weigh around 1300kg and emit less than 300 grams of CO2 per kilometre.

It will also be flexible, Sheriff confirmed, with at least 500Nm of torque (the peak is 600) available from 2000rpm, yet the engine revs past its 7000rpm power peak to 8500.

The 3.8-litre engine, built to McLaren's specifications by British engineering house, Ricardo, sits very low in the chassis, thanks to a dry-sump lubrication system. It features a flat-plane crankshaft.

Dubbed the M838T, the engine features twin MHI turbo-chargers. McLaren insists it will be the most fuel-efficient car in the segment.

The engine bolts to a double-clutch, seven-speed transmission, built in Italy by Graziano, with the driver shifting by a steering-column-mounted rocker paddle. This, according to Sheriff, is so drivers can change down by pulling on the left paddle or pushing on the right one.

It will also be aerodynamically effective, too, with input from McLaren's F1 aero experts. The MP4-12C's rear spoiler converts into an enormous air brake to help slow the car down under braking.

"There are a lot of things we can do aerodynamically with road cars that are actually outlawed on Formula One cars," Sheriff admitted.

But it's not just aerodynamically that the car has dipped into McLaren's F1 toy box, because instead of a limited-slip or locking differential, the 12C uses an open diff and controls drive by using Brake Steer -- something it debuted on its F1 car a decade ago in a car also, ironically, called the MP4-12.

The advantage is that it works whether the car is under power or not, and it pre-emptively brakes the inside wheel to help turn the car into a corner, then works again to stop wheelspin on the way out. BMW uses a similar systems in its X6 SUV.

The interior, designed to fit a 200cm driver, is full of McLaren's own telematics system and even supports the option of three cameras -- one in the nose, one behind the driver's shoulder and one at the rear -- so you can lap your favourite racetrack and record it directly into the car's hard drive to replay to your friends.

The 12C is not McLaren's first road car, though. When it built its ground-breaking F1 around 15 years ago, it was the world's first carbon-fibre road car, winning the Le Mans 24-Hour race at its first attempt. The F1 is still the fastest ever naturally-aspirated road car.

"We have never built a road car out of metal and we haven't made a race car out of metal for 30 years," Sheriff said.

"Carbon is part of the reason the 12C is 75-80kg lighter than a typical mid-engined supercar and 200kg lighter than a front-engined one."

Much of the weight improvement of the 12C is down to the car's carbon-fibre tub -- the core of the car's rigidity and safety -- which weighs less than 80kg, yet is 25 per cent more rigid than a metal chassis.

Not only is the tub light, but it is so strong that Sheriff claimed one tub did a US full frontal crash, had a new front-end put on it and did the partial-offset front crash and was repaired again for one other crash test as well.

"Ferrari seems focused on aluminium and Lamborghini is playing with it [carbon], but it will take them three to five years to catch up to this technology," McLaren's Structures Function Group Manager, Claudio Santoni, said.

While the double wishbone front suspension bolts directly into the carbon tub, the rear mounts onto an aluminium subframe. The car is also revolutionary in doing away with anti-roll bars altogether. Instead, it uses hydraulics to do the same job.

McLaren will build 1000 12Cs next year, but can ramp up to 4000 cars a year -- if it needs to.

"The biggest disease in this segment is building more cars than what the customers need," Sheriff insisted.

"We can do 2000 cars a year on one shift and we can go to a second shift. We do not have a financial need to make more than that.

"We've driven all of our competitors," Sheriff insisted. "But we've driven [also] everything from a Fiat Panda to a Rolls-Royce Phantom, just to understand everything we can."

Dennis admitted McLaren would take between four and five years to make a profit from the £750 million it has invested into its road-car program.

"Since 1966, 106 Formula One teams have come and gone," Dennis said, in explaining the move into a full line of road cars.

"Only Ferrari and us have been there since then, so for me, staying exclusively a Formula One team will inevitably lead to our extinction."

Dennis also plans to finalise the sale of 48 per cent of McLaren Automotive within three months to an investor as part of a plan to avoid debt.

Part of that investment will be in a new, £40 million production plant that will open in the first half of 2011. This will be the birthplace of two other models -- one smaller and cheaper, one larger and faster -- Dennis admitted are under development.

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