Supercars have come a long way to appear and perform the way they do nowadays, but every decade, there is one supercar in particular that turns the tables in terms of design and performance.
In 1992, it was McLaren’s F1 road car. Designed and engineered by some of the world’s best, it was no ordinary supercar, and it remains to this very day, a genuine benchmark.
Twenty years later, it was yet again the company from Woking behind the supercar revolution. Dubbed the P1, their latest flagship model features tomorrow’s technology for today, and a design language so radical and futuristic, it will make other upcoming supercars look outdated already.
Although performance figures remain unknown, McLaren says the car generates up to 600 kilograms of downforce, that’s five times more than your average – not that it is average – MP4-12C, and enough, as one person pointed out on McLaren’s official Facebook page, to push the Earth out of its orbit.
Designwise and up front, the P1 smiles for the cameras, but not a happy smile, it is a rather haunting smile, the kind that will make the people at Maranello stay up all night. Most striking though is the back end; with beautifully shaped taillights quite literally part of the bodywork and a diffuser so massive, one would mistake the car for a GT3 racer.
The P1 embodies McLaren Design Director Frank Stephenson’s “form equals function” philosophy, with multi-functional ducts, scoops, inlets and outlets forming the basis to the supercar’s final – and might I say, exotic – design.
Passing on Formula 1 technology to an everyday supercar is no easy task, but it’s not impossible, especially for a brand born and raised on the race track; and in order to develop the world’s best driver’s car, a company has to start from somewhere, and what is a better inspiration than the pinnacle of motorsport?
Featuring active aerodynamics including movable front flaps and substantial rear wing, the P1 is in every way a race car with a registration plate; the smooth underbody even helps generate “ground effects” – now heavily limited in Formula 1 – thus creating additional downforce.
Other technological goodies are a Drag Reduction System (DRS), and a rumored Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) which will reportedly increase the car’s total output to a number just shy of four figures.
The McLaren P1 is just a design study though, with a virtually similar production version expected for the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. Until then, you can follow all the latest McLaren news and buzz on their official Facebook page.
Special thanks to Erik Reynolds for the photographs from Paris Motor Show, you can visit his gallery here.