Test Drive - McLaren MP4-12C / Spider

R EVU E CAR

THE SCIENCE OF SOUL For making advanced maths cool and making James McCarthy admit he was wrong.

A F T ER DI S M I S SI NG T H E M C L A R EN M P4 -12 C A S A “BI T OF A BOR I NG , S OU LLES S , S C I ENCE PROJ EC T,” JA M ES M C C A RT H Y I S FORCED T O E AT H I S WOR D S A F T ER SEEI NG T H E LIGH T ON A BU DH A BI’ S F1 T R AC K .

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Ok, so the name still sounds like it should belong to a Canon fax machine, and admittedly I am not a huge fan of the metallic ochre colour scheme, but on one sunny day in January, on the F1 circuit “du jour” at Yas Island Abu Dhabi, I had any pre-conceived notions and misconceptions I might have had about the McLaren MP4-12C well and truly shattered.

We were invited by McLaren Automotive to meet its new regional director for the Middle East and Africa, Mark Harrison, witness the filming of the company’s latest video starring the MP4-12C and get a hot lap or two around the circuit, where the company’s F1 arm enjoyed success at the close of the 2011 season, with the car’s chief test driver, Chris Goodwin.

Normally, here at SLT, we see very little point in being driven in these cars, as it doesn’t allow us to really give an accurate assessment of their capabilities or the experience of driving them. This, however, was different. For well over two years now, McLaren has been rolling out the same spec-heavy buzzwords about things such as carbon-fibre MonoCells, Proactive Chassis Control, Pre-Cog capable gearboxes and Intelligent Damping systems. This was an opportunity to put all of this technobabble into some sort of realworld perspective.

Now, I will be the first to admit that, for me, the McLaren MP4-12C came across as a rather benign and sterile supercar, designed by boffins wearing white overcoats, in an airless cleanroom arguing over where to place the (mp4 + ½+c)=Y in the equation that would form the car’s mathematical soul. It was too perfectly engineered to be fun, too plain looking to be extreme and just, well, a bit dull... I couldn’t have been more wrong.

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Yes, you read that correctly. I admit, I was totally wide of the mark. So far wide, in fact, that you could comfortably say that the Chrysler design team was more on the money with the look of its PT Cruiser, than my preconceptions of the MP4-12C.

With my first tentative foray onto the floodlit track, I could feel the raft of technology working underneath, in front and behind me. The “brake steer,” where the computer brakes the inside rear wheel to reduce understeer in the corners, was particularly obvious, but that is a very over-simplified description of it.

Even as a passenger under the extreme driving of Goodwin, I felt a thrill that I had not expected, despite his promise to deliver a bladder weakening experience. The 3.8-litre V8 Twin Turbo screamed its instructions to the 592 British-bred horses caged in the rear mid-mounted engine as the MP4-12C careered from the straights and into the corners as if on rails, and was spat back out the other side at face melting speed.

In addition, the power to each wheel can be individually controlled by the clever damping system to ensure the most efficient entry and exit to even the tightest corners without any pitch or roll, making even mediocre drivers like me feel like Jenson Button.

My heart was nearly thumping out of my chest as I raised the dihedral door and clambered out in an ungainly fashion. I was halfway to realising my initial mistake and completely re-writing this article in my head when I was informed that, after dinner, I would get my chance to take the wheel.

It took less than half the circuit to get a handle on the McLaren, made especially easy thanks to the “Pre-Cog” transmission, which allows you to pre set the next gear up or down. By applying light pressure to the desired paddle, it alerts the dual-clutch gearbox whether or not it will be an upshift or a down shift, meaning that the engage is instantaneous (perhaps even quicker than that).

Eventually, after what seemed like an age of small talk and endless Dim Sum, I was handed my helmet once again and given the keys. The first thing I noticed as I sat behind the wheel and pulled the door shut was just how comfortable the cockpit was. There was none of the hardness you associate with supercars of a similar stature, the seats cosseted my frame and the controls were arranged in a well thought-out layout.

It was just as I hit the last straight and I ploughed my foot into the carpet, redlining the rev-counter and whooping with joy, that all of a sudden the maths finally made sense: (mp4 + ½ + c) = (Y + n0t)? And that’s the moment I realised that this car does have a soul after all.

There was a lot of talk from McLaren about the compromises made to the driving position to make this a more viable everyday car compared to the old F1, with its centrally-mounted steering column, but even in the MP4-12C, it felt as if you were hugging the centre line of the road.

It is a quintessentially British soul, though; reserved and discreet, but more than capable of making an emotionally-charged racket when pushed hard enough. However, like Nelson, Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia before it, the MP4-12C will always do it with an air of unflappable dignity and total control over the situation at hand.

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I N M OTI O N

MClarEN thrillS

With Topless Model

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James McCarthy takes to the mountain roads of the UAE in the McLaren MP4-12C Spider and gets caught in a web of indecision over which automotive arachnid he would rather have living in his garage.

Pictures: courtesy of Phil McGovern, Awesome Group / McLaren Automotive

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Marvellous effort, that,” quips my Aussie co-pilot and doyen of Dubai automotive journalism, Damien Reid, as I whip the nimble McLaren into a tight ascending bend on the mountain roads of Hatta in the UAE.

The car’s throttle response and handling is just sublime on roads like this, especially in the active “sport” setting and even more especially as this is the MP4-12C Spider, so I am doing it topless, so to speak, with a wheezing and growling twin-turbo V8 orchestra behind my head.

Saying that, of course, for 50 years McLaren’s bread and butter business has been making very fast cars without roofs, so it is hardly a surprise that the job of lopping the top off the MP4-12C coupé has been done so incredibly well.

Because, and let’s make no bones about this, McLaren is in direct, fierce competition with the Prancing Horse, both on and off the F1 circuit. As such, it seems that every part of the MP4-12C Spider has been bred to be just a little bit better than its rival, the Ferrari 458 Spider, a car that I was so captivated by when I drove it in Italy, I couldn’t think of another in its class that I would open my wallet long enough to consider purchasing.

However, glinting in the sunlit car park of the Hatta Fort Hotel, in a range of colour schemes from the sedate to the screamy, I am starting to wonder, as I look at the Mac, that if it came down to it, whether or not I would be so certain now.

The MP4-12C Spider is a good looking car. With similar, but slightly more pronounced, roll-safe buttresses to those on the 458, framing the 616 bhp M838T engine, this topless beauty is far more visually dramatic than the coupé. It almost looks longer. McLaren has even managed to maintain its dihedral door arrangement, a slight poke at the obvious inability of Mercedes to attach its iconic gullwings to the SLS Convertible, perhaps. The big Mac, it seems, is not content with just turning Italian ponies into Tesco burgers, but wants to make mincemeat out of its German rivals, too.

But, as the old adage goes, beauty is not just skin deep and, as I press the brake and prod the start button, the powerplant whirrs into life and the car feels alive. As the epic V8 idles, almost growling with its low, rumbling timbre, the high-pitched whine of the twin turbo almost makes the Spider seem as if it is breathing. Even more so when, in neautral, you put your foot to the carpet and let the thing redline before easing off the throttle, allowing the engine to wind itself down. It is almost captivating.

Despite driving the coupé a year-or-so ago at Yas Island and loving the way it handled, the power delivery, the clever pre-cog gear changes and all of the science behind the car, I still left feeling it was a bit too clinical; very much a driver’s car, but lacking that skittish playfulness you get with it’s Italian rival.

But now, under a flawless Hatta sky, with rangy, sweeping bends and beautifully long straight roads and, perhaps more importantly, without a roof, the McLaren has become something far more visceral.

As in its design, the performance of the car is understated; there is none of the usual supercar brutality as you imperceptibly shift up the seven-speed twin-clutch, Graziano-developed SSG gearbox and, under braking, there is little or no fuss and not a single hint of oversteer in tight corners unless, of course, you want there to be. Even then, it feels controlled. This is in no small part down to a raft of F1-inspired electronics and the same double wishbone suspension that can be found in its coupé stablemate, with hydraulically linked adaptive dampers - meaning that even in the harshest of the car’s settings, the ride quality and handling is nigh on perfect. It feels lithe and adroit, too, mostly thanks to its unique carbon “monocell” tub design, which has enabled McLaren to keep the weight-gain of the car to a positively anorexic 40kg.

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For that reason, the car remains exciting, but feels utterly unflappable, almost like I am driving in a speciallydesigned “hero-mode,” guaranteed to make me feel like Jenson Button behind the wheel, but without the possibility of imminent death or, sadly, the beautiful girlfriend. Even McLaren can’t engineer those.

What it has engineered, though, definitely captures the imagination. While Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are ubiquitous on our region’s roads, the McLaren, despite the company’s full order book and growing network of dealers, has not yet reached critical mass. Seeing a McLaren at the lights is as rare as spotting a Dutch wink on a nightclub dancefloor. As such, the Spider will always attract attention.

As we parked up to admire the work of the British marque and grab a few phone shots of the car for Instagram and Twitter amidst the picture-perfect surroundings, passing cars would slow and honk their horns. Damien and I even briefly became a photo opportunity for two bus loads of Asian tourists who stopped, not to get holiday snaps of the stunning mountain views, but of us and the car - much to the amusement of McLaren PR, Michelle Hogan, who pulled up in the photographer’s Mitsubishi Pajero just to laugh heartily and declare in her endearing Irish brogue that, by the end of the day, we would both be “big in Japan.”

Shrugging off the fan club and Hogan’s jibes, we got back on the road to make the most of our last opportunity to give the Spider a bit of a workout before hitting the speed limited highways on the route back to the hotel.

After taking what would ultimately prove to be a wrong turn past Hatta Police Station, I am met with an arrow-straight ribbon of empty tarmac, stretching toward the horizon and shimmering invitingly in the late afternoon sun. Needing no encouragement, I plant my foot in the carpet to revel in the acceleration and noise of that twin-turbo V8. When I do give it the beans, turbo lag is non-existent, there are vast reserves of power just waiting for a lead foot to set them loose, so there is never that embarrassing and trouser-soiling moment where you stutter into a roundabout, gaping with fear and waiting for the power to kick in as four speeding Land Cruisers suddenly appear from the left hand side. Just pedal it, and it goes - all too easily past 200km/h - without even breaking a sweat.

Equally, it can run fairly quietly and sedately when required, such as when you need to creep meekly back the way you came, past the police station you just strafed, because of confusion with the manufacturer-supplied routebook...

With just the right amount of feedback, the immense road holding and, of course, the V8 choir singing out behind me, I couldn’t think of a better place to be than in the cabin of this car. It is luxuriously well-appointed and you can feel the quality of the manufacturing in nearly every surface, but most importantly it is incredibly comfortable for a set of wheels in this category. Except once you hit the motorway with the roof down. Despite the best efforts of McLaren, on open, twisty mountain roads, the drop-top option is awesome but, on the motorway approach to Dubai, there was considerable buffeting.

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In Modena a year ago, I gushed about the 458 Spider’s clever roof mechanism, comparing it to “automotive origami,” but in a spectacular show of engineering nous and, dare I say it, one upmanship, the boffins at McLaren have developed a two-piece retractable hard top that not only allows the 3.8-litre power plant to still show off its wares through a perspex engine cover but can also be operated at speeds up to 30mph; two things its Maranello rival cannot do. Once the roof goes up (in around 17 seconds) on the 12C Spider, you are as cosseted as you would be in the coupé, but that also includes being isolated from the engine’s aural pleasures.

To counter this, a simple rear glass window that doubles as a wind deflector and can be lowered at the touch of a button. Do so when the roof is up and the full spectrum of engine noise, whooshing turbos and hissing waste gates fills the cabin to offer all the sonic entertainment but without the unsolicited exfoliating facial provided by the dusty desert wind. The company has also developed a somewhat gimmicky “Intake Sound Generator,” which enhances the engine noise in the cabin to levels that can be set by the driver, with nuances further based on the three driving modes; “normal,” “sport” and “track.”

There are other tweaks and additions from the coupé, too, such as new cosmetic options, including a greater choice of wheel designs, some flashy new colour schemes and an entirely new line of interior materials, as well as some more technical improvements - chief among which is a newly remapped performance package which, among other things, squeezes the power of an additional 25 Woking-bred ponies out of the engine and offers even sharper responsiveness from the gearbox. The same package is being rolled out in the 2013 iteration of the coupé and, remarkably, for free to existing customers whose cars predate the update.

It is this almost fanatical drive for perfection and customer service that could win over those in the market for a rear-mid-engined sportscar, who will now be facing a headache when it comes to choosing between this and the Ferrari.

After spending a day in the company of both the Mac and the 458, I sympathise, because if someone had asked me 12-months ago which car in this class I would sell my right kidney to afford, with scalpel in hand, I would have already chosen the Rosso Corsa paintwork and purchased the branded-PUMA driving shoes. But, because the MP4-12C Spider makes such a compelling argument for buying British and offers such a completely different, yet no less exciting, driving experience, I am left wondering: would I get enough for both cars if I just sold my kidneys as a matching pair?

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