New McLaren MP4 12C Supercar

New McLaren MP4 12C Supercar Jay Leno: This is exciting. I'm standing on one of the most ecology-minded car factories in the world, the McLaren Technical Center. This here is the very first McLaren F7. This is Bruce McLaren’s first car 1954 and that’s the F1 McLaren right back there, the car that won Le Mans. As you could see, it's quite a job. I'm going to take a walk around here and show you something of the fascinating aspects of this amazing factory. Let’s take a look. And there is nothing greater than going in some places says restricted access. This is the top secret nerve center where they’re making McLaren’s new road car, the MP4-12C. My host is the company’s managing director, Anthony Sheriff. Anthony Sheriff: This comes out of the mold in one single piece. So, considering the bonding, lots of pieces together, probably the fiber goes in, resin injected, mold open, out comes the tub. The only difference that we’ll have on the variants of cars we’re doing is that we drill the holes in different places for right hand drive and left hand drive. Other than that, it's identical and then you’re thinking all of these sections are hollow. So, we figured out a way to mold in all of these hollow sections in a single piece without having lots of semi- structural things that are then mounted together. It's really remarkable. Jay Leno: Let’s see how light it is. Wow! It's depressing. I can double the weight of the car by sitting in it. Anthony Sheriff: The front of the car, you’ll see. Jay Leno: This is the moment of truth. The first time, I’ll be it on a screen. I get to see the new car. Anthony Sheriff: They are there for a functional reason. Jay Leno: Right. Anthony Sheriff: So, one of the things when you sit in the car and then you’ll notice is first of all, you have an incredibly good form of stability. It's the basic that weights are being summed up. So, that’s a trigger to the F1 that we want to be keeping. Jay Leno: And you know it's so much more flowing. I expected some really angular looking thing which I don’t care for. I really liked it. It looks like it was drawn by hand which is what I like. Anthony Sheriff: Let us go back downstairs to see the real thing, well almost. This is the final prototype what they are calling the P11. Jay Leno: Yeah, it's terrific. Oh, very impressive. Anthony Sheriff: Yeah. The finished car has some new details in the front and it is done by my buddy Frank Stevenson. Jay Leno: I love the emblem, breaks it up and it works. This won the first prototypes of the new P11 and I own one of the original McLaren F1s and I can see that that is sort of the ancestral father of this car although it's not the continuation of that car in any way. There are little hints of McLaren throughout it. And fantastic car, seven speed gear box, everything nicely laid out, certainly comfortable enough. The dash right in front of you there, speedometer down here in this corner, the tachometer is the most important gauge really in this whole thing. In here, it only goes about seven and a half. The actual red line in this car is almost 9000 rpm which is very exciting, the satellite NAV and radio and all that goes right here. It feels light. It feels tight. Here is your controls right here for your seven-speed gear box, seven speed is pretty amazing. What else do we got here? I only got here three separate controls for sport, touring as they all do now and it has launch control as well. Anthony Sheriff: It certainly does. Jay Leno: Yeah, launch control as well. And there is no key to this car. You just carry the fab in your pocket then you hit the start button then you go. Very, very impressive! You know what they need to do is find some high-profile person in Los Angeles to get the first one. That’s what I would do. That would be a very smart marketing thing I think.