The new McLaren MP 4-12C is the first of the new series of supercars from the same Formula one team that has been victorious 12 drivers Championships and 8 Constructors Championships. The McLaren MP 4-12C is not the Formula one team’s first road-going motorcar , this was the McLaren F1 GTR in the 1990s, and was the world’s fastest production motorcar for over 10 years. In its race form it was the overall winner and class winner of the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1995, and you might think this was the reason for developing the car but it was design to be the ultimate road automobile not a race car. McLaren’s next road-going car was the Mercedes McLaren SLR which was developed in partnership with Mercedes and was a GT Supercar. As Mercedes had demanded on adding lots of electronic equipment and a bulky engine with a bulky automatic gearbox, it was initially difficult to call this a supercar. This was because all this extra weight made the car very bulky, which made the car slow round corners but with the powerful engine it could reach a top speed of 208 mph down the straights, which put it solidly in the supercar class.
With these previous road-going automobiles McLaren have had help from its partners in developing some of the smaller aspects of the automobiles, for instance on McLaren F1 GTR the main concern regarding wiper blades was to make sure they did not cause any unnecessary drag, which would reduce the automobiles top speed, and this is why they chose a flat wiper blades. This is one of the reasons why the McLaren F1 GTR was the fastest production car for such a long time. The only reason they added any wiper blades to the McLaren F1 GTR was it was necessary to remove grime from the windscreen. The windscreen had a special coating that made precipitation flow from it, keeping it clear when in motion, so it was not important if the wiper blades lifted at fast speeds. When McLaren developed the Mercedes McLaren SLR they turned to their partner’s Mercedes when it came to developing small things like wiper blades as they have day-to-day experience of these, and also replacement wiper blades had to be available from Mercedes showrooms. McLaren also let Mercedes developed some of the larger parts of the car, like the large and very powerful supercharged engine and also the automatic gearbox.
McLaren and Mercedes announced an end to their collaboration in 2009, although McLaren will continue to use Mercedes F1 engines for few years to come in its F1 car. This meant that when McLaren began designing the MP 4-12C they had no partner to help them, although in a team with the collective intelligence of McLaren this will not be hard. The McLaren MP 4-12C has flat wiper blades akin to the ones used in the McLaren F1 GTR, although the replacement wiper blades are available off the shelf from a large number good motor parts suppliers. Also, with the exception of the tyres you will not find any other mass produced parts on the McLaren MP4-12C, as they have all been developed and produced by McLaren automotive. This is because everything on the MP4-12C is customised by McLaren for the automobile, even the 3.8 L V8 twin turbo engine is built by Mercedes in its new engine development department. McLaren has borrowed a lot of its F1 technology in building this car, it has a seven speed dual clutch gearbox just like the F1 car, but this one has “Pre-cog” this which allows the driver to preselect the next gear by half pulling the paddle shifter, which allows for much faster gear changes. The McLaren MP4-12C also has “brake steer” that was first seen on the McLaren F1 cars before it was quickly banned, this system decrease understeer when cornering at high speeds.
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