McLaren Unveils the MP4-12C Supercar - VIDEO ENHANCED

LONDON - March 18, 2010: McLaren Automotive hosted a LIVE 66-minute press conference this morning that was seen in its entirety right here on The Auto Channel. The press conference, 'Inside McLaren - The Launch of a New Car Company', was streamed from the McLaren Technology Centre.

Chairman Ron Dennis, Managing Director Anthony Sheriff, and other key individuals presented the story of how the MP4-12C was developed and how it will be marketed.

Various highlights from the press conference are now available (more to follow). Click PLAY on the windows below to watch.

McLaren Automotive: the launch of a new car company

Today, March 18 2010, at the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC), Ron Dennis (Chairman) and Antony Sheriff (Managing Director) confirmed McLaren Automotive’s plans for a range of highly efficient, high-performance sports cars. The first in the range, a lightweight, high-quality, mid-engined two-seat sports car called the MP4-12C, will be produced at the new £40 million McLaren Production Centre (MPC) that is set to become a showcase facility for the UK’s manufacturing and technology industries. Up to 300 new jobs will be generated directly as a result at McLaren, with many hundreds more indirectly through the construction programme, supply chain, and brand new global retail network.

Up to 1,000 12Cs will be delivered in 2011 through a global network of dedicated McLaren retailers in all major markets in North America, Europe, Middle-East, South Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Over 500 retailers have applied for an initial 35 franchises in 19 countries that will be confirmed by summer 2010. McLaren Automotive’s customers and retail partners are set to benefit from the company’s focus on aftersales, quality, innovation and ‘clean-sheet’ business plans. And initial interest is very strong with 1,600 ‘expressions of interest to purchase’, 12 months before launch.

• To watch the complete 66-minute press conference CLICK HERE

McLaren’s ambition for its new automotive company is to compete head-to-head against the world’s best sports car brands with a range of two-seat cars, whilst introducing innovative technologies, business practices and customer experiences that will re-write the rule book for the automotive industry. McLaren is approaching its new road car business in the same focused, agile and passionate way that the company’s motorsport division has practiced throughout its 40 year history as the world’s most successful motor racing team. The 12C will be ‘pure’ McLaren. All parts, from the V8 twin-turbo race-derived engine to all switches and electronics, are designed by McLaren.

Carbon lies at the core of the 12C, just as it has done in every race car or road car produced by McLaren in the last 30 years. The 12C features a revolutionary one-piece moulded carbon chassis - the MonoCell - that cascades technologies into a new market for this strong and lightweight material. The 12C will be the first car in the £125,000 to £175,000 market segment to feature a carbon chassis.

Clothing the 12C are panels of aluminium and SMC that are 11 percent lighter than on any other car. A key driver in McLaren’s ability to use such lightweight engineering solutions is that the MonoCell delivers all of the car’s structural integrity: the body panels exist purely to channel air rapidly and efficiently for cooling, downforce, or aerodynamic purposes. The design of the car, honed by the McLaren engineers and designers under the guidance of Design Director, Frank Stephenson, therefore follows classic function over form principles. Every panel, surface and line is working to support air-flow.

The results are new performance benchmarks in power, dynamics, efficiency, quality, safety and comfort that offer the perfect package for a full range of customer demands. It will be the most powerful car in its class with 600PS and 600Nm supporting a 0–200 km/h sprint of under 10 seconds. Vitally, it will also be the most fuel efficient car in its class by some margin, aiming to produce less than 300 g/km CO²: the 12C will produce each unit of power more efficiently than virtually every other car in the world featuring an internal combustion engine; petrol, diesel or hybrid.

The 12C’s gestation has followed a Formula 1-inspired development programme. Beginning in McLaren’s own Formula 1 simulator, and with close integration of Formula 1 and McLaren Automotive engineers who are all based under one roof at the MTC, the 12C test team is set to break through the one million miles of testing in spring 2010. The 12C has been rigorously developed in every continent in which it will go on sale, and exposed to extremes such as minus 50°C in the Arctic, over 50°C and dust storms in the Bahrain summer, and numerous 24 hour sessions at test tracks and circuits such as the Nordschleife at the Nürburgring.

But the ultimate examination took place in early March when the 2008 and 2009 Formula 1 world champions enjoyed a run-out in the 12C. Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a series of high-speed sessions behind the wheel of McLaren’s latest XP-Beta test cars. They assessed many of the car’s performance set-ups and systems, which is set to fine-tune the 12C development team’s final series of testing programmes over the coming months.

The first customer car enters McLaren’s existing Production Hall in late-2010, before production transfers to the new MPC in spring 2011, with quality systems developed that combine the best of both hand-built techniques and ‘lean’ production processes.

Ron Dennis, Chairman of McLaren Automotive, said: “We have long held the dream of building a range of McLaren high-performance sports cars that take the raw elements of Formula 1 principles, processes and performance and forge them into a unique package; one that offers customer-focused requirements of quality, efficiency, comfort and reliability.

“Today’s announcements confirm our intention to challenge convention at the highest levels of automotive design, from a new high-tech home that I am proud to say will deliver jobs, expertise and innovation in manufacturing and engineering.”

Antony Sheriff, Managing Director of McLaren Automotive, said: “McLaren Automotive has a track record of delivering two iconic sports car projects that have produced the fastest, most innovative, and the most commercially successful ultimate performance sports cars in history. Now we turn the page to a new challenge: developing a high-performance car company, with a range of sports cars to match.

“Our exciting new business combines a blank sheet of paper with the experience of programmes such as the McLaren F1 and our Formula 1 success. We can do things differently, better and more quickly. It’s an almost perfect scenario that will deliver quality, passion and great cars, as well as service to match.”

Frank Stephenson, Design Director of McLaren Automotive, said: “Like most designers it’s a boyhood dream to work with high performance sports cars. They are the purest expression of speed and purpose and, with increased consumer demand in this market and environmental aims to the fore, offer designers the ultimate challenge. The 12C design was led by aerodynamics and engineering influenced by the pinnacle of car design – Formula 1 – and it’s a fascinating challenge to work within such inspirational philosophies.

“It has been absolutely fundamental, and will remain so in future McLarens, that the design team and engineering teams work hand-in-hand: it makes for a better product and quicker, more effective development. Putting them together makes designers more pragmatic and engineers more creative and, as I have seen at McLaren, delivers great result,” Stephenson concluded.