March 6, 2014 • 46 mins
What hybrid car can compete with the Porsche 918 Spyder and Ferrari's LaFerrari? The McLaren P1, of course -- a limited production, plug-in hybrid supercar that's built by McLaren Automotive. Join Scott and Ben as they discuss hybrid supercars and the McLaren P1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and
welcome back to the show on Ben Boland and Scott today.
I think we should start with some listener mail and
Drew okay with it seems like a good place to go.
(00:23):
All right now these uh, we've got a couple here
and let's see if we can isolate the common theme.
All right. Resid B Writes to us and says, Hi, guys,
that just listen to your top ten cars of two
and fourteen, and you mentioned that the La Ferrari was
the only hybrid card to compete with the portion of
nine eighteen Spider. However, I think that you have forgotten
(00:45):
the incredible McLaren p one. It is from one of
the smaller car companies. To your mistake was acceptable? Thanks
for the great pod? Was acceptable? Yeah? Um? All right?
Next um. Our buddy Alex also known as a man Sawd,
writes in and says, hey, guys, good list for that episode.
He's referring to the same podcast. We missed a pretty
(01:06):
important car, the McLaren P one. I'm not sure how
you missed it because it competes directly with the portion
of eighteen and oh man, what a card is. Check
it out. It is balls to the wall crazy. And uh,
you guys, we might have we might have done a
little bit of a of a move on you, a
(01:27):
little bit of a bait and switch because we were
waiting to do this episode, the entire episode dedicated to
the McLaren P one. That's a nice spin, Ben, and
we've got all that information in front of us, so
we're going to talk about it now off the cuff.
You know, we forgot to mention the P one. Of
course we're talking about that just happens. I guess I
(01:47):
was just trying to think I was lucky to come
up with the law ferraris a matter of fact. You know,
my focus was on whatever car was next on our lists.
I wasn't really thinking about the competitors to that vehicle. Yeah,
I dropped the ball, and I'm just covering myself early
at this point. But but we did have all this
stuff that we're talking about for the McLaren P one
lined up and ready to go, and we've got it
for you today. So you know, fear not, there's plenty
(02:08):
of information about the P one coming right now, and
it's an amazing, amazing carbon Yes. So just at the
most basic level. Uh, you know what, I guess we
have to let the cat out of the bag right now.
At the most basic level. What is the McLaren P one.
It is a limited production hybrid supercar, and uh, it
(02:33):
is I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I don't know, Nola,
I don't know if you have to censor me when
I say it, but this car is badass. It definitely is.
I don't think you'll have to be censored for that
because it definitely is. This car is awesome and it
definitely holds its ground against the portion nine eighteen Spider
and the law Ferrari that we've mentioned briefly you know,
on other podcasts as well. But we've got some specs,
you know, some comparative specs to go along with this.
(02:54):
I want to talk about what what top Gear thought
of this thing, because Jeremy Clarkson drove the car and
gave it a raving review. It just a wonderful car.
I mean, some of the things that he says about
it are really shocking. Yeah, and can you can you
catch us up with some of that stuff? Yeah? You
want to do it? Right now. All right, so we'll
get into the specs and all that stuff right now.
But I mean, as he walks us through this car,
(03:14):
I mean, this will give you a little hint about
what it's all about if you're not familiar with the
P one. But I guess what strikes me most about
this whole thing is that this is a pretty jaded guy.
This is you know, Jeremy Clarkson. He's driven a lot
of cars, and I mean a lot of cars, and
the best that any manufacturer has to offer. Right so,
when you know Bugatti brings the car, it's the factory
prep car that's ready to go. It's the It's the
(03:36):
best Bugotti they've got on hand at Bugatti at the time.
It's the best Ferrari they've got on hand at Ferrari
at the time, report or whatever. He drove a McLaren
P one. I'm sure they did the same thing from McLaren,
but he drove him McLaren p onety. You think he
was in Belgium when he did it Um, which may
sound odd, but you'll figure it out in just a minute.
When I talk about where where a test drove it?
At Um an incredible, incredible review of this car, I mean,
(03:58):
and just to see it in action was really definitely
worth it. So, um, he says, throughout this whole thing,
he says, it's almost like he calls it, like science
fiction almost men. The way this thing is put together.
He said that every it's got extreme attention to detail.
I mean, everything has thought about and this reminded me
a lot of like what we talked about in the corvette.
He said, every single Graham has to fight its way
(04:20):
onto that card, has to be earned onto the car.
It's the exact same thing with this, only he says,
this is maybe even beyond that. This is this is
an incredible card. Heads has three cell lithium ion high
density battery battery cells that run this thing. So that
run the the electric motor part of this thing, because
there's an engine and a motor of course for a
hybrid car. And the electric motor itself puts out one
(04:42):
hundred and seventy six horse power, so that's not bad
for you know, just electric motor part. I it's not
you know, supercar fast or anything by that by the way,
But um, the engine part of this, the gasoline engine
is a three point eight leader twin turbo V eight
that puts out seven hundred and twenty two horse power,
and that's for a grand total. Because they work together,
they work combined nine and three horsepower in the McLaren
(05:04):
P one, And this vehicle is the hybrid that is
entirely performance related. This is not a hybrid to save gas. Now,
and you know, let's get this out of the way
right now, because I was really kind of struggling over this.
How to say this, because you know, they're not in it,
these supercar manufacturers like this, they're not in it for
(05:26):
the eco benefits. Right, Oh, I know what you're gonna say. Yeah,
let's just say it. It's they're they're they're using the
best of both worlds. I guess they're using the best
you know, the low end torque of the of the
electric motors. They're using the power I guess of the
of the gasolene engine, you know three point early here
twin turbo, you know, the giant V eight engine. And
they're they're making them together together, making them work together
(05:47):
in in different ways. Now, for the for the Porstie
and for the Lo Ferrari and the McLaren, they all
use them in different manners. But um, the way that
the McLaren uses it, it it can go all electric. You know,
it's able to drive an all electric mode, and he
does that in this in the short video clip this review.
It's like a fifteen minute review that I watched, and
he drives it in an all electric mode. But the
range is very, very slight. The range is six point
(06:09):
two miles for all our US listeners. For everybody else
that is ten kilometers. That's right, ten kilometers. But to
be fair, you're not really driving this thing in electric
mode ever, really. I mean you can if you want to.
I don't. I don't really see much benefit in doing that.
And they point out that even you know, with an
engine and a motor working, it's putting out about the
(06:32):
same you know, carbon dioxide emissions as as would like
a regular family sedan. So it's not anything that's you know,
tremendously you know, like an over output of c O
two or anything like that. Um, it's definitely cut way
back because of this technology, but it's not also something
that's gonna be running, you know, slipping through the airs
as uh um eco friendly as like a Prius would be, right, yeah, obviously,
(06:56):
and we'll have some we'll have some uh fun comparing. Yeah,
and now let me just kind of run through now.
And I took just real quick notes as top tier
went through this, and I'm gonna do this quickly and
then we get through, uh through you know some some
of the specs I guess that people want to hear about,
but um, some of the the observations that he made
along the way where that it was it was comfortable,
(07:16):
but it really didn't have any luxuries that you would
think it would normally have. Like there's no glove box,
there's no carpets. The glass is thinner than than glass
would be on a normal car. Now that's part of
the racing car history of the hair or heritage. Rather um,
normal cars, I think they have something like five millimeter glass.
This has like three and a half millimeters thick glass
all the way around in the back there the pieces
(07:38):
of glass that just aren't there. You know, they got
blanking plates instead of glass because that's an additional weight
it didn't need to carry. Um, they're so concerned about
weight that they didn't put lacquer on the carbon fiber trim,
So it's just raw carbon fiber, which you don't see anywhere. Really,
Usually you see it lacquered and smoothed over, so you know,
it doesn't cut up your finger tips and never run
them over. But um, and the reason for that was
that it saves what they it was one and a
(08:00):
half kilograms of weight, which is about three point three
pounds of weight over the whole vehicle, So that kind
of attention to details what they're what they're doing here. Um.
It has extremely light chassis of course, and titanium trimming,
so anything that you know would normally be any other
kind of metal in the car would be titanium, so
very light weight, very strong. The body is made up
of just five panels, so five exterior panels, and that
(08:21):
means less glue, less less um body fasteners, things like that,
nuts and bolts to hold the whole thing together, so
again less weight. It's kind of the Lotus principle of
of you know, weight saving A very good comparison. Yeah,
I think that's the best way to compare it. And
then despite the fact that it has you know, a
full engine, it also has an electric motor and a
bank of batteries and all that, it's still weighs less
(08:43):
than what he said was the Vauxhall Astra, and I
looked at Vauxhall Astra because here in the States we
don't have Vauxhall brand. But that's a small family car
from Vauxhall Motors, which is a subsidiary of the General
Motors brand from here in the United States. So, um,
again just picture of small sitan. This car ways less
than that, and it's a big supercar. Yeah it ways.
(09:03):
Uh well, I think we already gave the number three thousand,
seventy five pounds. We didn't give that weight, but that
is a that's a relatively lightweight vehicle. And when you
talk about some of the UM the other cars, like
the Portion ninetyteen Spider, which comes in like three thousand
and six pounds, so that's a full that's almost that's
six that's six pounds heavier than the than McLaren p
(09:25):
one for good reason too, because you know they do
all this weight saving um technology. They've all wrapped up.
So you know, he says that it's economical, it's fast,
and he says it's it's really fast. It's mind blowing
lee fast. And this is where he gets into some
of these comments that you know, this is where the
jaded character you know that he's driven so many cars
and so many fantastic cars that anytime he says something
(09:46):
like this, I get kind of excited about it because,
you know, it's it sounds like, you know, it sounds
like it's really really make an impression on him. Well yeah,
and he won't mence words now doesn't. So he tested it,
and this is why he's in Belgium. He tested it
at the Spa Track, which is the Formula one track
of course, very fast track. Uh kind of a you know,
wild you know, wild track as far as F one
(10:06):
series goes. Even Um said that it was really clever
in the way this whole thing worked out. It adapts
to the way you drive, and it moves to suit
the environment that the vehicles in on its own. It
does it, you know, based on speed, based on how
you're driving. This is what makes this car really incredible.
As the speed goes up, the rear wing raises to
generate down force, of course, which is kind of understood, right,
(10:27):
A lot of cars do that. Now when you look
at the rear wing on this thing, though we're talking,
it goes way up. It almost looks like it goes
like almost like two feet in the air up. It
goes way up like a like an F one car
would or something like that. Um, But if you go
past one dred and fifty six miles per hour, the
wing goes back down a little bit and has to
make it a little slippier, slipper ear that the right
way kind of we'll make it smoother through the air.
(10:49):
I guess it makes it flow through the air a
little better. Um. And it says that you know, above
one hundred and fifty six, that wing, that huge wing
is putting so much down force on the rear wheels.
Because this is a real wild drive car. It's not
all wheel drive, it's real will drive. It's putting so
much down force on the rear wheels that after one
it would put so much pressure on there that the
chassis would break. That's how that's how much down force
(11:11):
this thing is putting on. Okay, wait, wait, let's stop.
Everybody think about that. So much down force that it
would break the car. Yeah, the suspensions chassis that the
suspension would snap. Right. So that's it's incredible now. Um.
The exhaust works with the with the rear defuser to
generate kind of an area of low pressure behind the vehicle,
which pulls the back end of the car in as
(11:32):
it drives. The wheels are military grade aluminum, which is
just kind of another interesting feature which you won't really
read about it too often. The brake discs are made
from a material that's only ever been used in the
Arian space program because of their heat resistance, and they're
coated with something called silicon carbide, which is the hardest
substance known to man. So this car is I mean,
(11:53):
it's over the top in the way this thing was engineered.
It was it was just again, it's overdone. It's redundant
and the way things are done. But space saving or
not space saving, but weight saving in every in every aspect.
And we have some good information about well do you
want to keep going with some top gear stuff. I
guess I'm nearing the end and then I'll let you.
(12:13):
I'll let you had it. But um, we're talking about
acceleration and we'll talk exact numbers. But he does mention
that from zero to one hundred and sixty miles per hour,
this thing is faster than a VW Golf will go
zero to sixty miles per hour. That's how fastest car is.
Zero to one hundred and sixty. Just contemplate that for
just a moment, like, how how quick that is. That's
faster than some cars zero to sixty times and and
(12:35):
a golf that's not an exactly slow car by any means.
I mean, it's so it's peppy. I guess it's got
a little bit. And this is maybe the biggest thing.
And this is where I'll wrap up with because this
is kind of the end, but this is maybe the
thing that that struck me the most. And again, he's
driven so many cars, but he says, for years cars
have all been basically the same, but this really isn't.
It's a game changer, a genuinely new chapter in the
(12:58):
history of motoring, is what he calls this car. That's
that's how surprised he was by what he found when
he got behind the wheel of this thing. And he probably, uh,
he probably said exactly what the McLaren team was hoping for, Scott.
This car was hand assembled by a top tier group
of sixty one engineers, the Creme de la Creme, and uh,
(13:23):
they were making one car a day. Uh. The first
delivery took place in October. So if you think about it,
this is not This is not by any means and
an old thing. This is innovative. This is out the box. I,
as you know, I can be pretty skeptical about hybrids,
(13:46):
and I'm still not happy with that BMW that we
talked about in that original episode, but this one is
winning me over. And I think, as we're gonna find
in this episode, UM, let's let's do some stats and
maybe talk about how this crazy thing became a real car.
Sure if we can do that, now, if you want
to talk about you want to talk about where it
came from? Really, I guess because all right, well it
(14:07):
comes from McLaren Automotive. And may be surprised to learn
now we talked about Bruce McLaren, you know Bruce McClaren
who passed away in nineteen seventy at at testing at Goodwood. Yeah,
at the Goodwood House or at the Goodwood Circuit rather
and um, you would think that that Bruce McLaren was
the founder of McLaren Automotive, but that's not the case.
It's a guy by the name of Ron Dennis. And
(14:28):
Ron Dennis who was uh he's sixty six now he's
the executive chairman of McLaren Automotive UM Englishman. He's he
was the team principle of McLaren Racing, the F one
team UM until about two thousand nine. I think he
held that position for something like twenty nine years. Ben
he was the team principal from like nineteen eighty until
two thousand nine UM, but he left to build street
(14:50):
cars with McLaren Automotive and that was actually continue a
continuation of the dream that Bruce McLaren had when he
died in nineteen seventy, because he was he was working
on a car called the McLaren M six g T,
which was kind of a road going race car that
he had, uh well made into a road going car.
It's a race car that he had made into a
street car. It's like a barely street legal race car.
(15:12):
And he was driving this on the roads for some time,
but you know, several months at least before his death.
UM used it as a personal transportation and it was
kind of the prototype of these cars. And I think
two of these cars were actually built. But his dream
was to build production vehicles at one point, you know,
because you know, he had already done the race car
thing he had been building, and he you know, started
the McLaren race team and everything, and he decided, well,
(15:34):
it's built a road going car and we'll try that next.
And um, this was his thing. And then when he
died in nineteen seventy, that dream kind of you know,
died with him. And then you know, it wasn't until
much month later when Ron Dennis picked it up again
and said, well, let's let's make this thing a reality.
And if you'd like to hear some more about the
McLaren's story, just as a side note here, a little sidebar, uh,
(15:56):
go ahead and check out our earlier episode on the subject.
And and this is not to discount the McLaren F one,
which you know, is it's its own topic, you know,
but that was another supercar from the past that we
should talk about at some point in our history here.
But McLaren one that was when was that? That was
in the early nineteen nineties, I think, I think is
(16:16):
when the F one production began. And it was a
real limited production as well, just kind of like the
McLaren F one. Have we have we said how many
p ones are gonna be built? I don't think we
have specifically said is it seventy five? Yeah, that's the
that's the limited production of the P one. Who you know,
if you see one of these things, it's gonna be
it's gonna be pretty rare. It's a rare bird, I guess.
(16:38):
And oh, here's another fun fact about this. Uh. They
are sold out because key ones are sold out, they
are pre ordered. Uh. And everybody who wanted to get one, well,
that's not the right way to say it. Everyone who
jumped on it has gotten one, but has first come,
(16:59):
first serve. Uh. The only way that you will be
able to get a P one now, if you're not
already on that very small, very short list, is if
you buy a used one from the people who own them,
and and that will probably start happening soon. I would think.
Now pricing, if you're not impressed enough already that they're
only building three seventy five and you know some of
(17:19):
the things that we mentioned, pricing is somewhere if you
want to go US dollar has been around one point
three five million dollars, So that's the that's the starting point. However,
they do want to point out that most I think
I think it was something like a huge percentage of
these things, and I don't want to I don't want
to state a PC I think have opted for some
kind of level of unique customization to their McLaren P
(17:43):
one from you know, a place called McLaren Special Operations.
And so you know that one point three million, three
five million just isn't enough to spend on that car.
They want to add, you know, whatever type of luxury
features you know, I don't know Ostrich leather or whatever
they're gonna add. I don't know what the options are,
but those big airbrushed pictures of mother Maria's, Yeah, exactly,
I'm sure that's what they would add something like that,
(18:05):
and that's going to cost them a little bit more.
So the average price then goes up to something like
one point six million dollars. And I know that you
mentioned that. You know, they've already delivered a couple of cars.
They've delivered something to the owners in the UK beginning
in October two, and they say that, you know, soon
enough they're gonna be coming here to the United States,
and they think that the United States is going to
(18:25):
be the P one's biggest market that well, actually, you
know what, they can already say that because they know
where they're going, right right, Yeah, they've already they kind
of allocated different Uh, they allocated portions of the of
the run of the production two different areas of the world.
So by August McLaren already knew that they were sold
(18:46):
out of the cars they intended for the Middle East,
for Asia, and for North and South America, and then
by November, uh, they were sold out in Europe as well. Um.
One one thing we should note with the customization here,
and this is this is a really neat thing. Um.
The people who purchase of McLaren are able to remotely
(19:09):
watch its assembly. And you know, I was joking about
having some gaudy airbrush picture on there, but you would
probably be surprised, especially if you're not familiar with supercar customization,
you would be surprised by the level of detail that is. Um,
that's possible in this kind of customer, even in the
(19:30):
standard production. I mean, I think people will be blown
away by how clean the facilities are. I mean, it's
like an operating room when they put these things together. Yeah,
it's like a clean room for NASSA or something. What
do you say, sixty one people, sixty one engineers building
one car a day, So you gotta imagine what that
environment is going to be like. It's gonna be remarkable.
It's gonna be clean, it's gonna be precise. Everything's gonna
be exactly where it should be. You know, nothing's gonna
(19:52):
be left out at the end of the day, no
tools in the workbench, that kind of thing. So I
would I would love to go to the to the
facility and see someone's car being built. That would be
really cool. Yeah, wonder what the I wonder what the
vetting process for that is? Oh man? Um okay. So
so we know that, yes, this is a little more
expensive than your average geo metro to put it, uh,
(20:12):
to put it in an understatement of the year, but
we also know that, uh, this is worth it. Scott,
I guess should we should we go into stats? Yeah,
there's so many things though, I mean stats. It's a
tricky game to play because once we start talking about that,
then we want to talk about like the the curve
system that it has on board and some of the
(20:32):
F one technology. So let's do that. Let's just kind
of laundry list of stuff and we'll see where it
takes this hoout. Okay, and let's also not be not
hesitate to compare it to the F one. All right,
let's do that. So it's real will drive. UM has
a seven speed dual clutch transmission. It's a mid engine design,
of course what we talked about. So it's just behind
the driver's seat and passenger seat. UM. It's saying the
(20:55):
driver the passenger enclosed in something called the mono cage,
which is a safety cage. Accept um carbon fiber monocoque
and roof structure. So that's kind of like this all
encompassing carbon fiber tub. I guess that you would be
in UM actually more than a tub really UM. And
it's not the same mono cell that was used in
the current uh McLaren the MP four twelve C and
the MP four twelve C Spider, which came out in
(21:18):
early two thousand twelve. So it's not the same as
the mono cell. It's a different thing. It's a brand
new thing called the mono cage. UM. We mentioned that
it has a twin turbo three point leader V eight engine,
and again that three point eight Leader is not the
same engine that's used in the McLaren MP four twelve C.
The only thing that has that shares there is a displacement.
It's a completely different engine, something unique. And the horse
power out of this one, out of just the engine
(21:40):
is seven and twenty seven horsepower, and the torque is
something like five thirty one pound feet of torque just
out of the engine. And when you combine that with
the inn Oh that's the other thing. This is an
in house developed electric motor. So it's their own McLaren
brand motor. I guess they're not they're not sourcing that
from someone else exactly. So, and that produces one hundred
and seventy six horse power, which I mentioned in one
(22:00):
hundred ninety two pound feet of fork of torque of fork.
So anyways, the total output of this whole thing together,
I mean, because it does work together in concert, nine
hundred and three horse power and seven hundred and twenty
two pound feet of torque, which is that's amazing. So
if we put this on the road, what that translates
to is zero to sixty two miles per hour in
(22:22):
under three seconds two point eight to be exact, which
is faster than the McLaren F one. That's right, ladies
and gentlemen. The hybrid P one is a full five
and a half seconds faster than the F one. Ah yeah,
but five and a half seconds faster. I think that's
I think that's for the quarter mile time. I'm sorry,
(22:42):
that's uh, but that's okay because we're gonna get to
the quarter mile time because I'll tell you the quarter
mile time right now and then'll that will make sense. Then, Uh,
the standing quarter mile is something like nine point eight
seconds at one hundred and fifty two miles per hour.
Now that's uh, that's pretty fast. I mean that's faster
than the F one, the McLaren F one, of course,
than the previous one. Um you said five five and
a half seconds faster. That's faster than the Bugatti Veyron,
(23:03):
which does it at ten and a half seconds at
one hundred forty. So again, this thing is and it's
a it's a world class supercar. Really that it's a hybrid,
which is strange. I mean, you know this, this whole
thing with the new hybrid supercars is all strange to me.
The law Ferrari, the P one, it's a little bit weird.
But you know, I'm beginning to be won over by
these things, by by this this group, I guess, not
(23:25):
the not the standard sedans, you know, the coops or whatever,
and maybe not so much those yet, but the supercar
hybrid versions they're pretty cool. They've got their they've got
their benefits. Yeah, And I think that we are learning
a lot about the potential of hybrids because whenever there's
a whenever there's a new innovation, I always think that
(23:49):
we have to go through quite a few iterations that
that are far from perfect. But it's all the learning process.
And speaking of learning, Scott, I wanted to I wanted
to ask you cool uh And speaking of flawless segways,
let's go back to well, let's talk about times a
little bit more, because you had mentioned, you know, the
(24:10):
zero to sixty two. They would do zero to sixty
two uh in Europe. So that's one kilometers per hour
and that's why they do that. Um let's say about
breaking time. We'll do that too, but zero sixty two
and two point eight seconds. So we're talking like motorcycle faster, Ben, Really,
I mean, I know their motorcycles fast right now, but
this is a huge car. It's a it's a almost
thirty one hundred pound car that's going to zero to
(24:32):
sixty and two point eight seconds. Then it's zero to
one hundred and twenty four miles per hour in six
point eight seconds. That's okay, to be honest, that's that's
a fast zero to sixty time for most cars. Seconds
zero to one hundred and eighty six miles per hour
in just sixteen point five seconds. Incredible, So but you'll
have to be able to stop that as well. Ah. Yes,
(24:54):
it takes only six point two seconds to completely break
a hundred and eighty six miles per hour. During that
time you will cover about two and forty six ms,
so okay, so let's see that'll be sixties. Okay. So
it takes sixteen point five seconds to get up to
one eighty six and then it takes six point two
seconds to break from one eighty six down to zero.
(25:16):
So what's that? That's uh two uh two point seven
seconds under a minute, well, twenty two point seven seconds
to get from to get from zero to one eighty
six down to zero again? Yeah, how long does it
take for your heart rate to go back to normal?
This reminds me of the old like, you know, the
test that they would do with the cobra all the time,
the zero to one zero things. Oh yeah, this goes
(25:38):
up to one six and back down to zero again
and twenty two point seven seconds. Yeah. In fact, the
top speed of the P one is two hund seventeen
miles per hour three and fifty kilometers. However, it could
go faster, but it is electronically limited by the manufacturer. Yeah,
that's so it doesn't damage itself. We talked about speed
limits before, right, I think I think we have right,
(25:59):
and it's got these um, Okay, this is a good
time to talk about some of these these F one
derived features that I think we should mention. It has
something called instant power assist system and this is a
this is actually what I'll talk about it. There are
two buttons on the steering wheel. The I pass button,
which is instant power system is one of them on
the right hand side, I believe, and it gives an
instant boost and acceleration via the electric motor. So it
(26:21):
stores up all this energy, allows you to kind of
unleash some power that had been stored up in the
electric motor. Um. And then there's also this drag reduction
system which is they called DRS, and that's on the
left hand side, which you use it with your left thumb.
I guess it's a blue button and that operates the
car's rear wing and that increases straight line speed depending
on how you use it. I mean, it's this huge
rear wing that you can activate or deactivate. Um. Pretty
(26:44):
impressive either way. And the I PASS and DRS are
operated via push buttons that we mentioned. And then it
also has this uh this, well, it's this thing that
kind of continually operates, I guess, and it's it's it's
the same system they use an f one called the
Curve system, and curves is some and you'll here mentioned
when you talk about the La Ferrari and also in
the nineteen Spider, I believe, and they're all kind of
(27:06):
using this new technology but it's not new, brand new,
but um, what that does is it recovers the moving
vehicles kinetic energy under breaking and it stores it in
a reservoir. And it's not exactly like it's not exactly
like regenerative regenative breaking, which we hear about in smaller
cars like the toy To Prius and the Nissan Leaf
and all those vehicles, but it's a similar it's it's
a similar idea, but it stores this energy in a
(27:27):
in a flywheel or in batteries for later use under
acceleration only. So it's not just storing up, you know,
like in a general fund. I guess for this power
it's it's like this is used for acceleration only. Yeah,
it's a dedicated fund there. Um. You know what, Scott,
There's one thing you have to mention, and that is
that the p one, as nice as it sounds, is
(27:49):
not perfect. Well I mean, well, there are people who
have some quibbles with this. Uh. A lot of it
um comes back to the styling. You know. Styling, of
course is subjective. But uh, the reviews say it's not
an instant hit. Most people say the law Ferrari. A
lot of reviews say the law far Ferrari is a
(28:10):
more handsome car. Um. I get that people think that
it's got that the I think part of it is
the lack of lacquer. Um. But people say that it
looks awkward. It looks like a fiberglass kit car, the
lack of lacquer like that. Yeah, I understand that it
looks a little raw, right, it looks a little um,
it looks a little unfinished to them maybe, But but
(28:31):
that in a lot of cases, as we said, was
for for weight savings, and they do everything for a reason.
On this car. Now, the Law Ferrari, I mean, that's
as a very finely crafted, well put together vehicle by
by Ferrari rather and I understand that. You know, people
love the field, the look, the power of the passion
of Ferrari. You know, that's just that's what it's all about.
I mean, the sounds and everything. But the Law Ferrari,
(28:53):
that's in a that's a different class of of hybrid vehicles.
I guess if you want to put it this way,
because it can't. It can't drive on on all electric
power like the like the P one can. I don't
know if a lot of people know that even though
it's a hybrid, uh, this is one that's you know,
strictly um gasoline power to as far as the wheels
that they were concerned. It can't run off of electric
(29:14):
power alone. There's an onboard motor of course, that we
talked about. I think we have mentioned, haven't we I
don't know if we have or not. Maybe we haven't,
but um, there's one electric motor on the Lo Ferrari
chassis as well, but it doesn't drive the wheels like
it does in the the one in the P one
or or on the portion nineteen spider, because that one
can also drive in all electric mode. FORRAI says outright,
(29:35):
we're not going to make a card that drives all electric,
and we just we just don't do that. And you know,
I respect that decision because, uh, you know, you have
to be conscious of the idea of brand solution, you know,
and specialization. So uh, in kind of a response to
people's beef with the styling of the P one, McClaren
(29:57):
has this great website and this thing is like a movie. Uh.
I think it's designed by air dot com and this
shows that this is meant to show their emphasis on
aerodynamics and and the weight savings. So you can actually
look at a virtual model of a P one and
(30:18):
see where the air currents cut in and why they
have you know, the weird snoricle stuff and the air intakes,
and why the rear of the vehicle is designed the
way it is. And it sold me on that. So
it explains away a lot of the reasons why people
might have a problem with it. They may say, like, well,
that back end just doesn't look right to me. And
but they can show you this is why it looks
(30:40):
that way, because it's it's uh, what does the function
form form over function form over function of function over four?
I always get those backwards? Is that right? Anyways? Yeah, yeah,
let's let it go with that and we'll just say
so you understand what I mean though, right, I mean,
they show you why it works, and and you can
kind of play around with that thing, right because I
saw you and your and your stop messing with that,
(31:01):
and it looked really cool. It looked like a neat simulation,
almost like a simulator that you're driving almost right. Yeah,
And uh, it's very strange that that counts as work research. Now.
One thing I do have to correct myself on is
that earlier I said sixty one engineers. Um, but I
found a couple of different numbers there, because I also
(31:21):
found a review that said there were a two engineers
working on this and that it took them more time.
So uh as so just keep in mind that there
might be a little bit of a variance that number
either way. It's a handbuilt sports card that roughly put
together in a day, and you can go watch it yourself.
You can watch it being put together if you if
you're lucky enough to be able to buy one of
(31:42):
these things, um, if you've worked hard enough to be
able to do something like that. Now, that's that that
leads me to And I'm let me ask you this later,
not right now. This will be like my last question.
But but try to remind me about that later. You
know that the whole thing with with you know, once
you own a vehicle like this. Okay, and I'll try
to remember too, But um, I also want to talk
about the press coverage and then maybe just a little
(32:02):
bit about the Nurburgring because there's some intrigue going on
there with that and uh and a little bit of uh,
I don't know, just a little bit of um pushing
going on, you know, a little chest puffery going on
between Porsche and Ferrari and McLaren right now, a little
bit in Germany. Yeah, So the press coverage. As far
as the first public appearance, it was shown at Goodwood
(32:26):
Festival speed for the very first time in motion. You
know a lot of people saw it, you know, at
an auto show maybe, or they saw it because I
think it was refueled. I had this somewhere. Yeah, Geneva,
you remember the Geneva Motor show around March, but then
later that that year, that same year, and when is
Goodwood held in June? Yeah, Goodwood is in June. Uh
(32:47):
typically late June, early July something like that. Okay. Um,
So they they had the first public showing of the
the p one and kind of drove it up the hill,
I guess. And it was driven by Formula one driver
Unson Button, who drove a black p one up the hill.
And it was the first time the public had ever
seen this car being driven live, so it's kind of
a big deal. And there were three p onees present
(33:09):
ed Goodwood that day. There was an identical black vehicle
that they didn't use, and I guess, I guess that's
a backup in case something wrong. And then there was
that yellow one which is just sitting there to look
pretty exactly. Yeah. So they had had a good showing
a good Wood I guess, you know, to be able
to to bring out three vehicles, you know, the type
that I'm sure people were all over it, you know,
because this is the type of vehicle that people don't
really get to see in person hardly ever, right, Yeah,
(33:32):
as you I think we already said it at the top. Yeah,
you did see it at the top that if you
see one of these puppies, take a photo if you can.
I mean, if you're driving by and you see one part,
pull over and send the photo to me, because I
would love to have it. Yeah, it's really cool. I mean,
it's gonna be a rare sighting and I'm hoping that
we'll be able to see one here in Atlanta somewhere
because we we end up with a lot of exotics here.
(33:52):
And I'll tell you, oh, you know what, I haven't
even said this, but um, I drive past on one
of my back routes. I guess to to avoid some
Atlanta traffic, I go down a smaller road in Atlanta
here and I drive right past, uh a Lamborghini dealer
and the parking lot of course it has Lamborghini, Lotus, Aston,
Martin Spiker. It has all these amazing cars, right and
(34:13):
they're all parked outside. They're all, you know, right out
there for you to see. McLaren has been the McLaren
vehicles have been showing up on the property now they've
been and I've seen a few in traffic. I've seen
like the McLaren what is the MP four twelves C
or I've seen a few of those on the streets now,
so I know that they're coming from that dealership and there,
and there's at least three or four part of the dealership.
(34:33):
But I haven't had the guts to really pull in
there yet and uh and see if there's a p one.
I doubt it because you know, they're so so rare.
But also I don't like to pull into there on
a lot weekday when they're open and my you know,
beat up Honda Civic either, you know, because they know
I'm not there to buy a car. Obviously. I do
like to park, you know, in a lot next button,
next next door, and walk over on the weekend when
(34:55):
it's all chained up and everything, but just kind of
walk through the lot and check out what's there? Wow,
amazing like brand new cars, used cars. But the McLaren's
are there. I'm gonna go check out the m P
four twelve C soon. Yeah, oh man, will you take
some pictures? Oh yeah? I wish I could drive it then,
but there's just no way. There's no there's no chance.
I mean, I'm sure the credit check is is difficult
enough to get through. So let's okay, let's rent taxes.
(35:18):
Just go with me here, I've got a I've got
a cane sword. If you can get a monocle, and
we can hook up some top hats. Look like the
guys in Dumb and Dumber. Well we'll do accents though
it'll be Oh well, that's much more classy. I'm sure
that that will work out perfect. So okay, I don't
know if there's any more about the press that I
wanted to mention. Do you have anything else about the
press before? I think we should dive into the intrigue
(35:40):
my friends. All right, all right, the Nurburgring, and there's
some there's some I don't know, some talking going on
about what's happened at the Nrberg because up, okay, go ahead.
So McLaren announced that they had done a lap in
less than seven minutes um and they said there average
stated speed was a little bit over a hundred and
(36:04):
eleven miles per hour, but they didn't say the exact time.
And that's because the portion of nine eighteen Spider has
lapped the Nerburgring in six minutes and fifty seven seconds,
so that's just under seven minutes. Now, this is one
of their direct competitors, the portion nineteen Spider that we
mentioned that's in you know, eight hundred and forty five
(36:25):
thousand dollars supercar hybrid again, you know, the all wheel
drive plug in hybrid. Um. Ferrari has also done a
test like this. I don't know if they've actually I
don't know if they've actually gone and run their test
yet or not. I think they have. They have, they
haven't announced it now. See, this is the weird part
in case the law Ferrari has done it, that Porsche
has done it, and they've stayed at their time six
minutes fifty seven seconds. Law Ferrari has done it, they
(36:46):
haven't stayed a stay at their time. McLaren has done it.
They haven't stayed their time. But McLaren knows that Ferrari
is going to announce this soon. They know they're gonna
announce their Nerburgring time. And what I think they're doing
is they're just waiting to just completely blow it out
of the water as soon as it happens, because why
else would they be holding onto the number. Right. I
think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be pretty close.
(37:06):
But still I I don't know man, And we we
have to emphasize, um the importance of having this kind
of lap time at the Nerburgring because this is something
that becomes a huge selling point for your vehicle that
you are the fast exactly. It's it's it's the best
(37:26):
bragging rights that are out there right now. It's advertise,
it really is. And I mean, and there's like the
Texas Mile that you can talk about, there's there's other
competitions that you can run in that say, you know, like, well,
this car is really fantastic for this reason. Straight out speed,
you know, straight line speed, the fastest zero to sixty
that type of thing. The one lap of the nerber
Gring has just seems to be like today's test. You know,
(37:47):
that's the way that everybody measures themselves against one another.
And and they're no no different in any way. I mean,
there have been some speculation, there's there's some unofficial reports
that um at time of like six minutes and four
seven seconds has been possible for this thing. So that's
a full ten seconds faster than the portion of nine
eighteen Spider, which is no slouch by the way. That's
(38:08):
that's a fast, fast car. So I'm guessing that the
La Ferrari is gonna fall somewhere between sixty seven and
six fifty seven, because I think they're gonna best the
portion of time, but I just don't know where McLaren
falls in this, and they're gonna be much lower than
that or you know how it's gonna all play out.
So we're gonna see that soon. And if you want
to get just a quick a quick idea of how
fast this thing goes around the track, I mean, you
(38:29):
can watch a YouTube video that I've I've kind of
watched a few times now. It's pretty amazing. It's it's
actually one of these things that like they kind of
low you into sleep with the soft music and its
narration and then they and then they just shock you
with a motor sound and you know it's it's startling. Um.
The video is called McLaren p one versus the Nurburgring
uh Norde Schlifa and that's the old pronouncation. You can
(38:52):
just search McLaren p one versus the Nerburgring. It'll come up,
but it'll show you not the complete lap, but some
of the lap and some of the prep that goes
into getting on the course, and this real dramatic narration.
It's really well put together. A short film really yeah. Yeah,
it's only a couple of minutes long, but it'll it'll
give you an idea of what this car looks and
sounds like on the track, and it is worth your time.
(39:14):
Just just do be aware of the change in volume. There.
Uh no, I've got let's see, we've got one other thing. Oh,
I have one of one total totally irrelevant thing that
I want to point out irrelevant. We'll see. Okay. Now,
you've heard people say that they cut all of the
(39:35):
niceties out of the McLaren P one. However, Scott, that
is not completely true. There are two cup holders, two
couples also carbon five. I never would have guessed that
there were a couplders in that car. Well, you know,
sometimes when you're driving, you want to make sure that
you have your you know, your slurpee or your I
just can't believe it. I can't believe Okay. My problem
(39:57):
with that is that why would you ever put food
or drink in this vehicle? That's one thing. Yeah, sure,
that's that's the huge thing to me. Sure or be
distracted by a drink that you're trying to trying to
slurp down while you're while you're going a hundred and
eighty six miles an hour or something. Yeah, not that
you would be doing that, but you know what I mean.
It's it's definitely not the place to have a food
and beverage. I wouldn't think, Well, that's amazing, man, I
(40:20):
hadn't read that anywhere. That has two coup holders now,
but it doesn't have a glove box and no carpets,
right yeah, and thin glass and thin glass and unlacquered
carbon fiber. Does have hv A c though, but and
it does have room for your big gulp. Well, yeah,
you gotta have your big gulp if you're if you're
in a one and a beef jerky holder, that's what
(40:41):
the other one looks. Looks like a vase, but it's
a beef jerky holder, all right. So you know, I
think we don't know if there's other things. And I
had a couple of questions actually that I wanted to
ask you. Yeah, you had you said one that we
really couldn't forget. Well, the first one and I'm I'm
kind of eliminating this one, but I'll tell you what
it was, just because I've kind of talked myself out
of this one, and I initially wrote this down when
we first started digging into this car, and I was wondering,
(41:03):
if you think it's just, you know, by making this
a hybrid car instead of just an outright supercar, you
know that that uh, if they had just stuck with
the gasoline engine versus adding the hybrid technology to it,
do you think that by adding that technology, they're just
adding complexity to an already complex vehicle. Because supercars are
complex to begin with. I mean they're they're not anything
that's mass produced obviously. I mean it's something that's it's
(41:25):
difficult to put together, and everything is well thought out,
um extremely well thought out, but but it's just just
adding too much complexity. And I think after that top
Gear review that I watched, I realized that that I
don't know, it seems like an absurd question now because
it's not. It's not that it's too complex. They did
it for a reason. I mean, this this thing works
together so well, and it works so perfectly, and that
(41:48):
you know, the the electric motor it fills in the
gaps of the of the gasoline engine when it's not
at its peak performance the electric motors taking over, so
it's not like a typical hybrid in that case, you know,
where it's just kind of laying in wait. This thing
is actively helping along the way. So when you're shifting
and in between gears, the electric motors kicking in to
help keep the speed up and keep the revs up
(42:08):
and keep it you know, it's just helping you in
all these different ways. Well, I think I see what
you're saying, because it's it's a cohesive hole. It's not
an electric motors shoehorned into a car. Yeah, I guess so,
I mean, it's it's I and I kind of I
think he answered your question. I did. I gotta. I
got away from that one thinking that maybe that's that's
kind of silly to think of it that way. And
why else would you know Porsche and Ferrari be doing
(42:30):
the same thing. I mean, obviously they're in competition with you,
with each other. They're not doing it to create an
eco friendly vehicle by any means. They're they're really doing
it because this is the latest and greatest technology and
they can take advantage of that technology. Okay, Yeah, I
think you've answered it better than I could have. Well,
I don't know. I talked myself out of that one,
really and in a lot of ways. So what's the
last question here? All right? And this is the final
(42:51):
thing that I want to kind of wrap up with.
And I want you to think about this, and I
want our listeners to think about this. Okay, So I
don't have to answer right away, No, not really. But
but I wonder if now this is a special a car.
It's it's I mean, three seventy five in the whole world,
there's gonna be far more, um you know, portion nineteen
producers gonna be nine eighteen to those, and the law
Ferrari there's gonna be four of those. There's gonna be
(43:12):
three seventy five of these. But I wonder if owning
a car like this, something's limited edition, you know, whether
it's one of those three or not, does something like
this become an all consuming effort for the owner? I mean,
does it become something that you can only think about,
you only think about while you're awake, you know, and
while you're sleeping that you know, it's it's constantly on
your mind, like, you know, where is my car now?
(43:32):
Am I really getting nine hundred and three horsepower out
of it? Um? What am I gonna do to it next? Um?
You know you're worried about where it's parked. You're worried
about Um, you know who's who's looking at it right now?
Are they? Are they you know, touching the windows or whatever?
I mean? Is it something that you would be concerned about,
like while you're sleeping, Like where's where it's parked? If
it's safe? Um, when you're driving it, you're gonna be
worried about people bumping into you, because that happens in traffic.
(43:53):
You know. I just I've been bumped into a few times.
Imagine if you were in a million dollar car, what
would happens? So, you know, before you own it and
even maybe you know, of course during but even maybe
after you own it. Would you think about this car
all the time? Is it something that would just be
kind of all consuming to you? Because I think about
my project car. I think about my my daily driver
a lot, which is kind of silly, But I think
(44:15):
about repairs I have to make. I think about my
drive home, you know, like maybe I better check the
tire pressure. I know I'm gonna need gas and things
like that. It's it's mundane things. And in this car,
I would think you would think about, like, well, I
gotta take it in for service because they told me
after five miles I have to bring it back to
the McLaren dealer for a I don't know, fifteen hundred
dollar service, you know where they check the tires and
make sure that you know, my eight thousand dollar rims
(44:36):
are still straight, and plumber and everything and make sure
that all that's correct. And I think that this thing
would be so heavy on your mind that you would
maybe only think about that. I see you are saying
kind of a ring of power thing like token. I
don't know, maybe it becomes your precious. Uh so that's
that is a great question. And what do you think?
Or if you are listening and you own a rare vehicle,
(44:59):
you're elf, do you find yourself in the same situation?
Is your concern for your car increased by an order
of magnitude? Am I overthinking it? Or is I mean,
is this is something like you know, of course you're
buying something like this, that's probably a drop in the bucket,
you know, as far as your checkbook is. So maybe
it's nothing. Maybe it's a throwaway, you know, even at
even at that point, it's a it's something to show
up to a party in and show off a little bit,
(45:21):
and that's it. Well, we are going to find out. Well,
I'm gonna take some time and think about this before
I answered in full, and listeners would like you to
do the same thing. So let us know if you
think that owning a supercar like this would make you
crazy obsessive. Uh. And you can tell us about this
on Facebook and Twitter. Check out our website car Stuff
(45:42):
Show dot com, and you can write an email with
your answer to this question directly. Our email address is
car stuff and Discovery dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, how stuff works dot com.
Let us know do you think? Send an email to
podcast at how stuffworks dot com. M M m h
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and
welcome back to the show on Ben Boland and Scott today.
I think we should start with some listener mail and
Drew okay with it seems like a good place to go.
(00:23):
All right now these uh, we've got a couple here
and let's see if we can isolate the common theme.
All right. Resid B Writes to us and says, Hi, guys,
that just listen to your top ten cars of two
and fourteen, and you mentioned that the La Ferrari was
the only hybrid card to compete with the portion of
nine eighteen Spider. However, I think that you have forgotten
(00:45):
the incredible McLaren p one. It is from one of
the smaller car companies. To your mistake was acceptable? Thanks
for the great pod? Was acceptable? Yeah? Um? All right?
Next um. Our buddy Alex also known as a man Sawd,
writes in and says, hey, guys, good list for that episode.
He's referring to the same podcast. We missed a pretty
(01:06):
important car, the McLaren P one. I'm not sure how
you missed it because it competes directly with the portion
of eighteen and oh man, what a card is. Check
it out. It is balls to the wall crazy. And uh,
you guys, we might have we might have done a
little bit of a of a move on you, a
(01:27):
little bit of a bait and switch because we were
waiting to do this episode, the entire episode dedicated to
the McLaren P one. That's a nice spin, Ben, and
we've got all that information in front of us, so
we're going to talk about it now off the cuff.
You know, we forgot to mention the P one. Of
course we're talking about that just happens. I guess I
(01:47):
was just trying to think I was lucky to come
up with the law ferraris a matter of fact. You know,
my focus was on whatever car was next on our lists.
I wasn't really thinking about the competitors to that vehicle. Yeah,
I dropped the ball, and I'm just covering myself early
at this point. But but we did have all this
stuff that we're talking about for the McLaren P one
lined up and ready to go, and we've got it
for you today. So you know, fear not, there's plenty
(02:08):
of information about the P one coming right now, and
it's an amazing, amazing carbon Yes. So just at the
most basic level. Uh, you know what, I guess we
have to let the cat out of the bag right now.
At the most basic level. What is the McLaren P one.
It is a limited production hybrid supercar, and uh, it
(02:33):
is I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I don't know, Nola,
I don't know if you have to censor me when
I say it, but this car is badass. It definitely is.
I don't think you'll have to be censored for that
because it definitely is. This car is awesome and it
definitely holds its ground against the portion nine eighteen Spider
and the law Ferrari that we've mentioned briefly you know,
on other podcasts as well. But we've got some specs,
you know, some comparative specs to go along with this.
(02:54):
I want to talk about what what top Gear thought
of this thing, because Jeremy Clarkson drove the car and
gave it a raving review. It just a wonderful car.
I mean, some of the things that he says about
it are really shocking. Yeah, and can you can you
catch us up with some of that stuff? Yeah? You
want to do it? Right now. All right, so we'll
get into the specs and all that stuff right now.
But I mean, as he walks us through this car,
(03:14):
I mean, this will give you a little hint about
what it's all about if you're not familiar with the
P one. But I guess what strikes me most about
this whole thing is that this is a pretty jaded guy.
This is you know, Jeremy Clarkson. He's driven a lot
of cars, and I mean a lot of cars, and
the best that any manufacturer has to offer. Right so,
when you know Bugatti brings the car, it's the factory
prep car that's ready to go. It's the It's the
(03:36):
best Bugotti they've got on hand at Bugatti at the time.
It's the best Ferrari they've got on hand at Ferrari
at the time, report or whatever. He drove a McLaren
P one. I'm sure they did the same thing from McLaren,
but he drove him McLaren p onety. You think he
was in Belgium when he did it Um, which may
sound odd, but you'll figure it out in just a minute.
When I talk about where where a test drove it?
At Um an incredible, incredible review of this car, I mean,
(03:58):
and just to see it in action was really definitely
worth it. So, um, he says, throughout this whole thing,
he says, it's almost like he calls it, like science
fiction almost men. The way this thing is put together.
He said that every it's got extreme attention to detail.
I mean, everything has thought about and this reminded me
a lot of like what we talked about in the corvette.
He said, every single Graham has to fight its way
(04:20):
onto that card, has to be earned onto the car.
It's the exact same thing with this, only he says,
this is maybe even beyond that. This is this is
an incredible card. Heads has three cell lithium ion high
density battery battery cells that run this thing. So that
run the the electric motor part of this thing, because
there's an engine and a motor of course for a
hybrid car. And the electric motor itself puts out one
(04:42):
hundred and seventy six horse power, so that's not bad
for you know, just electric motor part. I it's not
you know, supercar fast or anything by that by the way,
But um, the engine part of this, the gasoline engine
is a three point eight leader twin turbo V eight
that puts out seven hundred and twenty two horse power,
and that's for a grand total. Because they work together,
they work combined nine and three horsepower in the McLaren
(05:04):
P one, And this vehicle is the hybrid that is
entirely performance related. This is not a hybrid to save gas. Now,
and you know, let's get this out of the way
right now, because I was really kind of struggling over this.
How to say this, because you know, they're not in it,
these supercar manufacturers like this, they're not in it for
(05:26):
the eco benefits. Right, Oh, I know what you're gonna say. Yeah,
let's just say it. It's they're they're they're using the
best of both worlds. I guess they're using the best
you know, the low end torque of the of the
electric motors. They're using the power I guess of the
of the gasolene engine, you know three point early here
twin turbo, you know, the giant V eight engine. And
they're they're making them together together, making them work together
(05:47):
in in different ways. Now, for the for the Porstie
and for the Lo Ferrari and the McLaren, they all
use them in different manners. But um, the way that
the McLaren uses it, it it can go all electric. You know,
it's able to drive an all electric mode, and he
does that in this in the short video clip this review.
It's like a fifteen minute review that I watched, and
he drives it in an all electric mode. But the
range is very, very slight. The range is six point
(06:09):
two miles for all our US listeners. For everybody else
that is ten kilometers. That's right, ten kilometers. But to
be fair, you're not really driving this thing in electric
mode ever, really. I mean you can if you want to.
I don't. I don't really see much benefit in doing that.
And they point out that even you know, with an
engine and a motor working, it's putting out about the
(06:32):
same you know, carbon dioxide emissions as as would like
a regular family sedan. So it's not anything that's you know,
tremendously you know, like an over output of c O
two or anything like that. Um, it's definitely cut way
back because of this technology, but it's not also something
that's gonna be running, you know, slipping through the airs
as uh um eco friendly as like a Prius would be, right, yeah, obviously,
(06:56):
and we'll have some we'll have some uh fun comparing. Yeah,
and now let me just kind of run through now.
And I took just real quick notes as top tier
went through this, and I'm gonna do this quickly and
then we get through, uh through you know some some
of the specs I guess that people want to hear about,
but um, some of the the observations that he made
along the way where that it was it was comfortable,
(07:16):
but it really didn't have any luxuries that you would
think it would normally have. Like there's no glove box,
there's no carpets. The glass is thinner than than glass
would be on a normal car. Now that's part of
the racing car history of the hair or heritage. Rather um,
normal cars, I think they have something like five millimeter glass.
This has like three and a half millimeters thick glass
all the way around in the back there the pieces
(07:38):
of glass that just aren't there. You know, they got
blanking plates instead of glass because that's an additional weight
it didn't need to carry. Um, they're so concerned about
weight that they didn't put lacquer on the carbon fiber trim,
So it's just raw carbon fiber, which you don't see anywhere. Really,
Usually you see it lacquered and smoothed over, so you know,
it doesn't cut up your finger tips and never run
them over. But um, and the reason for that was
that it saves what they it was one and a
(08:00):
half kilograms of weight, which is about three point three
pounds of weight over the whole vehicle, So that kind
of attention to details what they're what they're doing here. Um.
It has extremely light chassis of course, and titanium trimming,
so anything that you know would normally be any other
kind of metal in the car would be titanium, so
very light weight, very strong. The body is made up
of just five panels, so five exterior panels, and that
(08:21):
means less glue, less less um body fasteners, things like that,
nuts and bolts to hold the whole thing together, so
again less weight. It's kind of the Lotus principle of
of you know, weight saving A very good comparison. Yeah,
I think that's the best way to compare it. And
then despite the fact that it has you know, a
full engine, it also has an electric motor and a
bank of batteries and all that, it's still weighs less
(08:43):
than what he said was the Vauxhall Astra, and I
looked at Vauxhall Astra because here in the States we
don't have Vauxhall brand. But that's a small family car
from Vauxhall Motors, which is a subsidiary of the General
Motors brand from here in the United States. So, um,
again just picture of small sitan. This car ways less
than that, and it's a big supercar. Yeah it ways.
(09:03):
Uh well, I think we already gave the number three thousand,
seventy five pounds. We didn't give that weight, but that
is a that's a relatively lightweight vehicle. And when you
talk about some of the UM the other cars, like
the Portion ninetyteen Spider, which comes in like three thousand
and six pounds, so that's a full that's almost that's
six that's six pounds heavier than the than McLaren p
(09:25):
one for good reason too, because you know they do
all this weight saving um technology. They've all wrapped up.
So you know, he says that it's economical, it's fast,
and he says it's it's really fast. It's mind blowing
lee fast. And this is where he gets into some
of these comments that you know, this is where the
jaded character you know that he's driven so many cars
and so many fantastic cars that anytime he says something
(09:46):
like this, I get kind of excited about it because,
you know, it's it sounds like, you know, it sounds
like it's really really make an impression on him. Well yeah,
and he won't mence words now doesn't. So he tested it,
and this is why he's in Belgium. He tested it
at the Spa Track, which is the Formula one track
of course, very fast track. Uh kind of a you know,
wild you know, wild track as far as F one
(10:06):
series goes. Even Um said that it was really clever
in the way this whole thing worked out. It adapts
to the way you drive, and it moves to suit
the environment that the vehicles in on its own. It
does it, you know, based on speed, based on how
you're driving. This is what makes this car really incredible.
As the speed goes up, the rear wing raises to
generate down force, of course, which is kind of understood, right,
(10:27):
A lot of cars do that. Now when you look
at the rear wing on this thing, though we're talking,
it goes way up. It almost looks like it goes
like almost like two feet in the air up. It
goes way up like a like an F one car
would or something like that. Um, But if you go
past one dred and fifty six miles per hour, the
wing goes back down a little bit and has to
make it a little slippier, slipper ear that the right
way kind of we'll make it smoother through the air.
(10:49):
I guess it makes it flow through the air a
little better. Um. And it says that you know, above
one hundred and fifty six, that wing, that huge wing
is putting so much down force on the rear wheels.
Because this is a real wild drive car. It's not
all wheel drive, it's real will drive. It's putting so
much down force on the rear wheels that after one
it would put so much pressure on there that the
chassis would break. That's how that's how much down force
(11:11):
this thing is putting on. Okay, wait, wait, let's stop.
Everybody think about that. So much down force that it
would break the car. Yeah, the suspensions chassis that the
suspension would snap. Right. So that's it's incredible now. Um.
The exhaust works with the with the rear defuser to
generate kind of an area of low pressure behind the vehicle,
which pulls the back end of the car in as
(11:32):
it drives. The wheels are military grade aluminum, which is
just kind of another interesting feature which you won't really
read about it too often. The brake discs are made
from a material that's only ever been used in the
Arian space program because of their heat resistance, and they're
coated with something called silicon carbide, which is the hardest
substance known to man. So this car is I mean,
(11:53):
it's over the top in the way this thing was engineered.
It was it was just again, it's overdone. It's redundant
and the way things are done. But space saving or
not space saving, but weight saving in every in every aspect.
And we have some good information about well do you
want to keep going with some top gear stuff. I
guess I'm nearing the end and then I'll let you.
(12:13):
I'll let you had it. But um, we're talking about
acceleration and we'll talk exact numbers. But he does mention
that from zero to one hundred and sixty miles per hour,
this thing is faster than a VW Golf will go
zero to sixty miles per hour. That's how fastest car is.
Zero to one hundred and sixty. Just contemplate that for
just a moment, like, how how quick that is. That's
faster than some cars zero to sixty times and and
(12:35):
a golf that's not an exactly slow car by any means.
I mean, it's so it's peppy. I guess it's got
a little bit. And this is maybe the biggest thing.
And this is where I'll wrap up with because this
is kind of the end, but this is maybe the
thing that that struck me the most. And again, he's
driven so many cars, but he says, for years cars
have all been basically the same, but this really isn't.
It's a game changer, a genuinely new chapter in the
(12:58):
history of motoring, is what he calls this car. That's
that's how surprised he was by what he found when
he got behind the wheel of this thing. And he probably, uh,
he probably said exactly what the McLaren team was hoping for, Scott.
This car was hand assembled by a top tier group
of sixty one engineers, the Creme de la Creme, and uh,
(13:23):
they were making one car a day. Uh. The first
delivery took place in October. So if you think about it,
this is not This is not by any means and
an old thing. This is innovative. This is out the box. I,
as you know, I can be pretty skeptical about hybrids,
(13:46):
and I'm still not happy with that BMW that we
talked about in that original episode, but this one is
winning me over. And I think, as we're gonna find
in this episode, UM, let's let's do some stats and
maybe talk about how this crazy thing became a real car.
Sure if we can do that, now, if you want
to talk about you want to talk about where it
came from? Really, I guess because all right, well it
(14:07):
comes from McLaren Automotive. And may be surprised to learn
now we talked about Bruce McLaren, you know Bruce McClaren
who passed away in nineteen seventy at at testing at Goodwood. Yeah,
at the Goodwood House or at the Goodwood Circuit rather
and um, you would think that that Bruce McLaren was
the founder of McLaren Automotive, but that's not the case.
It's a guy by the name of Ron Dennis. And
(14:28):
Ron Dennis who was uh he's sixty six now he's
the executive chairman of McLaren Automotive UM Englishman. He's he
was the team principle of McLaren Racing, the F one
team UM until about two thousand nine. I think he
held that position for something like twenty nine years. Ben
he was the team principal from like nineteen eighty until
two thousand nine UM, but he left to build street
(14:50):
cars with McLaren Automotive and that was actually continue a
continuation of the dream that Bruce McLaren had when he
died in nineteen seventy, because he was he was working
on a car called the McLaren M six g T,
which was kind of a road going race car that
he had, uh well made into a road going car.
It's a race car that he had made into a
street car. It's like a barely street legal race car.
(15:12):
And he was driving this on the roads for some time,
but you know, several months at least before his death.
UM used it as a personal transportation and it was
kind of the prototype of these cars. And I think
two of these cars were actually built. But his dream
was to build production vehicles at one point, you know,
because you know, he had already done the race car
thing he had been building, and he you know, started
the McLaren race team and everything, and he decided, well,
(15:34):
it's built a road going car and we'll try that next.
And um, this was his thing. And then when he
died in nineteen seventy, that dream kind of you know,
died with him. And then you know, it wasn't until
much month later when Ron Dennis picked it up again
and said, well, let's let's make this thing a reality.
And if you'd like to hear some more about the
McLaren's story, just as a side note here, a little sidebar, uh,
(15:56):
go ahead and check out our earlier episode on the subject.
And and this is not to discount the McLaren F one,
which you know, is it's its own topic, you know,
but that was another supercar from the past that we
should talk about at some point in our history here.
But McLaren one that was when was that? That was
in the early nineteen nineties, I think, I think is
(16:16):
when the F one production began. And it was a
real limited production as well, just kind of like the
McLaren F one. Have we have we said how many
p ones are gonna be built? I don't think we
have specifically said is it seventy five? Yeah, that's the
that's the limited production of the P one. Who you know,
if you see one of these things, it's gonna be
it's gonna be pretty rare. It's a rare bird, I guess.
(16:38):
And oh, here's another fun fact about this. Uh. They
are sold out because key ones are sold out, they
are pre ordered. Uh. And everybody who wanted to get one, well,
that's not the right way to say it. Everyone who
jumped on it has gotten one, but has first come,
(16:59):
first serve. Uh. The only way that you will be
able to get a P one now, if you're not
already on that very small, very short list, is if
you buy a used one from the people who own them,
and and that will probably start happening soon. I would think.
Now pricing, if you're not impressed enough already that they're
only building three seventy five and you know some of
(17:19):
the things that we mentioned, pricing is somewhere if you
want to go US dollar has been around one point
three five million dollars, So that's the that's the starting point. However,
they do want to point out that most I think
I think it was something like a huge percentage of
these things, and I don't want to I don't want
to state a PC I think have opted for some
kind of level of unique customization to their McLaren P
(17:43):
one from you know, a place called McLaren Special Operations.
And so you know that one point three million, three
five million just isn't enough to spend on that car.
They want to add, you know, whatever type of luxury
features you know, I don't know Ostrich leather or whatever
they're gonna add. I don't know what the options are,
but those big airbrushed pictures of mother Maria's, Yeah, exactly,
I'm sure that's what they would add something like that,
(18:05):
and that's going to cost them a little bit more.
So the average price then goes up to something like
one point six million dollars. And I know that you
mentioned that. You know, they've already delivered a couple of cars.
They've delivered something to the owners in the UK beginning
in October two, and they say that, you know, soon
enough they're gonna be coming here to the United States,
and they think that the United States is going to
(18:25):
be the P one's biggest market that well, actually, you
know what, they can already say that because they know
where they're going, right right, Yeah, they've already they kind
of allocated different Uh, they allocated portions of the of
the run of the production two different areas of the world.
So by August McLaren already knew that they were sold
(18:46):
out of the cars they intended for the Middle East,
for Asia, and for North and South America, and then
by November, uh, they were sold out in Europe as well. Um.
One one thing we should note with the customization here,
and this is this is a really neat thing. Um.
The people who purchase of McLaren are able to remotely
(19:09):
watch its assembly. And you know, I was joking about
having some gaudy airbrush picture on there, but you would
probably be surprised, especially if you're not familiar with supercar customization,
you would be surprised by the level of detail that is. Um,
that's possible in this kind of customer, even in the
(19:30):
standard production. I mean, I think people will be blown
away by how clean the facilities are. I mean, it's
like an operating room when they put these things together. Yeah,
it's like a clean room for NASSA or something. What
do you say, sixty one people, sixty one engineers building
one car a day, So you gotta imagine what that
environment is going to be like. It's gonna be remarkable.
It's gonna be clean, it's gonna be precise. Everything's gonna
be exactly where it should be. You know, nothing's gonna
(19:52):
be left out at the end of the day, no
tools in the workbench, that kind of thing. So I
would I would love to go to the to the
facility and see someone's car being built. That would be
really cool. Yeah, wonder what the I wonder what the
vetting process for that is? Oh man? Um okay. So
so we know that, yes, this is a little more
expensive than your average geo metro to put it, uh,
(20:12):
to put it in an understatement of the year, but
we also know that, uh, this is worth it. Scott,
I guess should we should we go into stats? Yeah,
there's so many things though, I mean stats. It's a
tricky game to play because once we start talking about that,
then we want to talk about like the the curve
system that it has on board and some of the
(20:32):
F one technology. So let's do that. Let's just kind
of laundry list of stuff and we'll see where it
takes this hoout. Okay, and let's also not be not
hesitate to compare it to the F one. All right,
let's do that. So it's real will drive. UM has
a seven speed dual clutch transmission. It's a mid engine design,
of course what we talked about. So it's just behind
the driver's seat and passenger seat. UM. It's saying the
(20:55):
driver the passenger enclosed in something called the mono cage,
which is a safety cage. Accept um carbon fiber monocoque
and roof structure. So that's kind of like this all
encompassing carbon fiber tub. I guess that you would be
in UM actually more than a tub really UM. And
it's not the same mono cell that was used in
the current uh McLaren the MP four twelve C and
the MP four twelve C Spider, which came out in
(21:18):
early two thousand twelve. So it's not the same as
the mono cell. It's a different thing. It's a brand
new thing called the mono cage. UM. We mentioned that
it has a twin turbo three point leader V eight engine,
and again that three point eight Leader is not the
same engine that's used in the McLaren MP four twelve C.
The only thing that has that shares there is a displacement.
It's a completely different engine, something unique. And the horse
power out of this one, out of just the engine
(21:40):
is seven and twenty seven horsepower, and the torque is
something like five thirty one pound feet of torque just
out of the engine. And when you combine that with
the inn Oh that's the other thing. This is an
in house developed electric motor. So it's their own McLaren
brand motor. I guess they're not they're not sourcing that
from someone else exactly. So, and that produces one hundred
and seventy six horse power, which I mentioned in one
(22:00):
hundred ninety two pound feet of fork of torque of fork.
So anyways, the total output of this whole thing together,
I mean, because it does work together in concert, nine
hundred and three horse power and seven hundred and twenty
two pound feet of torque, which is that's amazing. So
if we put this on the road, what that translates
to is zero to sixty two miles per hour in
(22:22):
under three seconds two point eight to be exact, which
is faster than the McLaren F one. That's right, ladies
and gentlemen. The hybrid P one is a full five
and a half seconds faster than the F one. Ah yeah,
but five and a half seconds faster. I think that's
I think that's for the quarter mile time. I'm sorry,
(22:42):
that's uh, but that's okay because we're gonna get to
the quarter mile time because I'll tell you the quarter
mile time right now and then'll that will make sense. Then, Uh,
the standing quarter mile is something like nine point eight
seconds at one hundred and fifty two miles per hour.
Now that's uh, that's pretty fast. I mean that's faster
than the F one, the McLaren F one, of course,
than the previous one. Um you said five five and
a half seconds faster. That's faster than the Bugatti Veyron,
(23:03):
which does it at ten and a half seconds at
one hundred forty. So again, this thing is and it's
a it's a world class supercar. Really that it's a hybrid,
which is strange. I mean, you know this, this whole
thing with the new hybrid supercars is all strange to me.
The law Ferrari, the P one, it's a little bit weird.
But you know, I'm beginning to be won over by
these things, by by this this group, I guess, not
(23:25):
the not the standard sedans, you know, the coops or whatever,
and maybe not so much those yet, but the supercar
hybrid versions they're pretty cool. They've got their they've got
their benefits. Yeah, And I think that we are learning
a lot about the potential of hybrids because whenever there's
a whenever there's a new innovation, I always think that
(23:49):
we have to go through quite a few iterations that
that are far from perfect. But it's all the learning process.
And speaking of learning, Scott, I wanted to I wanted
to ask you cool uh And speaking of flawless segways,
let's go back to well, let's talk about times a
little bit more, because you had mentioned, you know, the
(24:10):
zero to sixty two. They would do zero to sixty
two uh in Europe. So that's one kilometers per hour
and that's why they do that. Um let's say about
breaking time. We'll do that too, but zero sixty two
and two point eight seconds. So we're talking like motorcycle faster, Ben, Really,
I mean, I know their motorcycles fast right now, but
this is a huge car. It's a it's a almost
thirty one hundred pound car that's going to zero to
(24:32):
sixty and two point eight seconds. Then it's zero to
one hundred and twenty four miles per hour in six
point eight seconds. That's okay, to be honest, that's that's
a fast zero to sixty time for most cars. Seconds
zero to one hundred and eighty six miles per hour
in just sixteen point five seconds. Incredible, So but you'll
have to be able to stop that as well. Ah. Yes,
(24:54):
it takes only six point two seconds to completely break
a hundred and eighty six miles per hour. During that
time you will cover about two and forty six ms,
so okay, so let's see that'll be sixties. Okay. So
it takes sixteen point five seconds to get up to
one eighty six and then it takes six point two
seconds to break from one eighty six down to zero.
(25:16):
So what's that? That's uh two uh two point seven
seconds under a minute, well, twenty two point seven seconds
to get from to get from zero to one eighty
six down to zero again? Yeah, how long does it
take for your heart rate to go back to normal?
This reminds me of the old like, you know, the
test that they would do with the cobra all the time,
the zero to one zero things. Oh yeah, this goes
(25:38):
up to one six and back down to zero again
and twenty two point seven seconds. Yeah. In fact, the
top speed of the P one is two hund seventeen
miles per hour three and fifty kilometers. However, it could
go faster, but it is electronically limited by the manufacturer. Yeah,
that's so it doesn't damage itself. We talked about speed
limits before, right, I think I think we have right,
(25:59):
and it's got these um, Okay, this is a good
time to talk about some of these these F one
derived features that I think we should mention. It has
something called instant power assist system and this is a
this is actually what I'll talk about it. There are
two buttons on the steering wheel. The I pass button,
which is instant power system is one of them on
the right hand side, I believe, and it gives an
instant boost and acceleration via the electric motor. So it
(26:21):
stores up all this energy, allows you to kind of
unleash some power that had been stored up in the
electric motor. Um. And then there's also this drag reduction
system which is they called DRS, and that's on the
left hand side, which you use it with your left thumb.
I guess it's a blue button and that operates the
car's rear wing and that increases straight line speed depending
on how you use it. I mean, it's this huge
rear wing that you can activate or deactivate. Um. Pretty
(26:44):
impressive either way. And the I PASS and DRS are
operated via push buttons that we mentioned. And then it
also has this uh this, well, it's this thing that
kind of continually operates, I guess, and it's it's it's
the same system they use an f one called the
Curve system, and curves is some and you'll here mentioned
when you talk about the La Ferrari and also in
the nineteen Spider, I believe, and they're all kind of
(27:06):
using this new technology but it's not new, brand new,
but um, what that does is it recovers the moving
vehicles kinetic energy under breaking and it stores it in
a reservoir. And it's not exactly like it's not exactly
like regenerative regenative breaking, which we hear about in smaller
cars like the toy To Prius and the Nissan Leaf
and all those vehicles, but it's a similar it's it's
a similar idea, but it stores this energy in a
(27:27):
in a flywheel or in batteries for later use under
acceleration only. So it's not just storing up, you know,
like in a general fund. I guess for this power
it's it's like this is used for acceleration only. Yeah,
it's a dedicated fund there. Um. You know what, Scott,
There's one thing you have to mention, and that is
that the p one, as nice as it sounds, is
(27:49):
not perfect. Well I mean, well, there are people who
have some quibbles with this. Uh. A lot of it
um comes back to the styling. You know. Styling, of
course is subjective. But uh, the reviews say it's not
an instant hit. Most people say the law Ferrari. A
lot of reviews say the law far Ferrari is a
(28:10):
more handsome car. Um. I get that people think that
it's got that the I think part of it is
the lack of lacquer. Um. But people say that it
looks awkward. It looks like a fiberglass kit car, the
lack of lacquer like that. Yeah, I understand that it
looks a little raw, right, it looks a little um,
it looks a little unfinished to them maybe, But but
(28:31):
that in a lot of cases, as we said, was
for for weight savings, and they do everything for a reason.
On this car. Now, the Law Ferrari, I mean, that's
as a very finely crafted, well put together vehicle by
by Ferrari rather and I understand that. You know, people
love the field, the look, the power of the passion
of Ferrari. You know, that's just that's what it's all about.
I mean, the sounds and everything. But the Law Ferrari,
(28:53):
that's in a that's a different class of of hybrid vehicles.
I guess if you want to put it this way,
because it can't. It can't drive on on all electric
power like the like the P one can. I don't
know if a lot of people know that even though
it's a hybrid, uh, this is one that's you know,
strictly um gasoline power to as far as the wheels
that they were concerned. It can't run off of electric
(29:14):
power alone. There's an onboard motor of course, that we
talked about. I think we have mentioned, haven't we I
don't know if we have or not. Maybe we haven't,
but um, there's one electric motor on the Lo Ferrari
chassis as well, but it doesn't drive the wheels like
it does in the the one in the P one
or or on the portion nineteen spider, because that one
can also drive in all electric mode. FORRAI says outright,
(29:35):
we're not going to make a card that drives all electric,
and we just we just don't do that. And you know,
I respect that decision because, uh, you know, you have
to be conscious of the idea of brand solution, you know,
and specialization. So uh, in kind of a response to
people's beef with the styling of the P one, McClaren
(29:57):
has this great website and this thing is like a movie. Uh.
I think it's designed by air dot com and this
shows that this is meant to show their emphasis on
aerodynamics and and the weight savings. So you can actually
look at a virtual model of a P one and
(30:18):
see where the air currents cut in and why they
have you know, the weird snoricle stuff and the air intakes,
and why the rear of the vehicle is designed the
way it is. And it sold me on that. So
it explains away a lot of the reasons why people
might have a problem with it. They may say, like, well,
that back end just doesn't look right to me. And
but they can show you this is why it looks
(30:40):
that way, because it's it's uh, what does the function
form form over function form over function of function over four?
I always get those backwards? Is that right? Anyways? Yeah, yeah,
let's let it go with that and we'll just say
so you understand what I mean though, right, I mean,
they show you why it works, and and you can
kind of play around with that thing, right because I
saw you and your and your stop messing with that,
(31:01):
and it looked really cool. It looked like a neat simulation,
almost like a simulator that you're driving almost right. Yeah,
And uh, it's very strange that that counts as work research. Now.
One thing I do have to correct myself on is
that earlier I said sixty one engineers. Um, but I
found a couple of different numbers there, because I also
(31:21):
found a review that said there were a two engineers
working on this and that it took them more time.
So uh as so just keep in mind that there
might be a little bit of a variance that number
either way. It's a handbuilt sports card that roughly put
together in a day, and you can go watch it yourself.
You can watch it being put together if you if
you're lucky enough to be able to buy one of
(31:42):
these things, um, if you've worked hard enough to be
able to do something like that. Now, that's that that
leads me to And I'm let me ask you this later,
not right now. This will be like my last question.
But but try to remind me about that later. You
know that the whole thing with with you know, once
you own a vehicle like this. Okay, and I'll try
to remember too, But um, I also want to talk
about the press coverage and then maybe just a little
(32:02):
bit about the Nurburgring because there's some intrigue going on
there with that and uh and a little bit of uh,
I don't know, just a little bit of um pushing
going on, you know, a little chest puffery going on
between Porsche and Ferrari and McLaren right now, a little
bit in Germany. Yeah, So the press coverage. As far
as the first public appearance, it was shown at Goodwood
(32:26):
Festival speed for the very first time in motion. You
know a lot of people saw it, you know, at
an auto show maybe, or they saw it because I
think it was refueled. I had this somewhere. Yeah, Geneva,
you remember the Geneva Motor show around March, but then
later that that year, that same year, and when is
Goodwood held in June? Yeah, Goodwood is in June. Uh
(32:47):
typically late June, early July something like that. Okay. Um,
So they they had the first public showing of the
the p one and kind of drove it up the hill,
I guess. And it was driven by Formula one driver
Unson Button, who drove a black p one up the hill.
And it was the first time the public had ever
seen this car being driven live, so it's kind of
a big deal. And there were three p onees present
(33:09):
ed Goodwood that day. There was an identical black vehicle
that they didn't use, and I guess, I guess that's
a backup in case something wrong. And then there was
that yellow one which is just sitting there to look
pretty exactly. Yeah. So they had had a good showing
a good Wood I guess, you know, to be able
to to bring out three vehicles, you know, the type
that I'm sure people were all over it, you know,
because this is the type of vehicle that people don't
really get to see in person hardly ever, right, Yeah,
(33:32):
as you I think we already said it at the top. Yeah,
you did see it at the top that if you
see one of these puppies, take a photo if you can.
I mean, if you're driving by and you see one part,
pull over and send the photo to me, because I
would love to have it. Yeah, it's really cool. I mean,
it's gonna be a rare sighting and I'm hoping that
we'll be able to see one here in Atlanta somewhere
because we we end up with a lot of exotics here.
(33:52):
And I'll tell you, oh, you know what, I haven't
even said this, but um, I drive past on one
of my back routes. I guess to to avoid some
Atlanta traffic, I go down a smaller road in Atlanta
here and I drive right past, uh a Lamborghini dealer
and the parking lot of course it has Lamborghini, Lotus, Aston,
Martin Spiker. It has all these amazing cars, right and
(34:13):
they're all parked outside. They're all, you know, right out
there for you to see. McLaren has been the McLaren
vehicles have been showing up on the property now they've
been and I've seen a few in traffic. I've seen
like the McLaren what is the MP four twelves C
or I've seen a few of those on the streets now,
so I know that they're coming from that dealership and there,
and there's at least three or four part of the dealership.
(34:33):
But I haven't had the guts to really pull in
there yet and uh and see if there's a p one.
I doubt it because you know, they're so so rare.
But also I don't like to pull into there on
a lot weekday when they're open and my you know,
beat up Honda Civic either, you know, because they know
I'm not there to buy a car. Obviously. I do
like to park, you know, in a lot next button,
next next door, and walk over on the weekend when
(34:55):
it's all chained up and everything, but just kind of
walk through the lot and check out what's there? Wow,
amazing like brand new cars, used cars. But the McLaren's
are there. I'm gonna go check out the m P
four twelve C soon. Yeah, oh man, will you take
some pictures? Oh yeah? I wish I could drive it then,
but there's just no way. There's no there's no chance.
I mean, I'm sure the credit check is is difficult
enough to get through. So let's okay, let's rent taxes.
(35:18):
Just go with me here, I've got a I've got
a cane sword. If you can get a monocle, and
we can hook up some top hats. Look like the
guys in Dumb and Dumber. Well we'll do accents though
it'll be Oh well, that's much more classy. I'm sure
that that will work out perfect. So okay, I don't
know if there's any more about the press that I
wanted to mention. Do you have anything else about the
press before? I think we should dive into the intrigue
(35:40):
my friends. All right, all right, the Nurburgring, and there's
some there's some I don't know, some talking going on
about what's happened at the Nrberg because up, okay, go ahead.
So McLaren announced that they had done a lap in
less than seven minutes um and they said there average
stated speed was a little bit over a hundred and
(36:04):
eleven miles per hour, but they didn't say the exact time.
And that's because the portion of nine eighteen Spider has
lapped the Nerburgring in six minutes and fifty seven seconds,
so that's just under seven minutes. Now, this is one
of their direct competitors, the portion nineteen Spider that we
mentioned that's in you know, eight hundred and forty five
(36:25):
thousand dollars supercar hybrid again, you know, the all wheel
drive plug in hybrid. Um. Ferrari has also done a
test like this. I don't know if they've actually I
don't know if they've actually gone and run their test
yet or not. I think they have. They have, they
haven't announced it now. See, this is the weird part
in case the law Ferrari has done it, that Porsche
has done it, and they've stayed at their time six
minutes fifty seven seconds. Law Ferrari has done it, they
(36:46):
haven't stayed a stay at their time. McLaren has done it.
They haven't stayed their time. But McLaren knows that Ferrari
is going to announce this soon. They know they're gonna
announce their Nerburgring time. And what I think they're doing
is they're just waiting to just completely blow it out
of the water as soon as it happens, because why
else would they be holding onto the number. Right. I
think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be pretty close.
(37:06):
But still I I don't know man, And we we
have to emphasize, um the importance of having this kind
of lap time at the Nerburgring because this is something
that becomes a huge selling point for your vehicle that
you are the fast exactly. It's it's it's the best
(37:26):
bragging rights that are out there right now. It's advertise,
it really is. And I mean, and there's like the
Texas Mile that you can talk about, there's there's other
competitions that you can run in that say, you know, like, well,
this car is really fantastic for this reason. Straight out speed,
you know, straight line speed, the fastest zero to sixty
that type of thing. The one lap of the nerber
Gring has just seems to be like today's test. You know,
(37:47):
that's the way that everybody measures themselves against one another.
And and they're no no different in any way. I mean,
there have been some speculation, there's there's some unofficial reports
that um at time of like six minutes and four
seven seconds has been possible for this thing. So that's
a full ten seconds faster than the portion of nine
eighteen Spider, which is no slouch by the way. That's
(38:08):
that's a fast, fast car. So I'm guessing that the
La Ferrari is gonna fall somewhere between sixty seven and
six fifty seven, because I think they're gonna best the
portion of time, but I just don't know where McLaren
falls in this, and they're gonna be much lower than
that or you know how it's gonna all play out.
So we're gonna see that soon. And if you want
to get just a quick a quick idea of how
fast this thing goes around the track, I mean, you
(38:29):
can watch a YouTube video that I've I've kind of
watched a few times now. It's pretty amazing. It's it's
actually one of these things that like they kind of
low you into sleep with the soft music and its
narration and then they and then they just shock you
with a motor sound and you know it's it's startling. Um.
The video is called McLaren p one versus the Nurburgring
uh Norde Schlifa and that's the old pronouncation. You can
(38:52):
just search McLaren p one versus the Nerburgring. It'll come up,
but it'll show you not the complete lap, but some
of the lap and some of the prep that goes
into getting on the course, and this real dramatic narration.
It's really well put together. A short film really yeah. Yeah,
it's only a couple of minutes long, but it'll it'll
give you an idea of what this car looks and
sounds like on the track, and it is worth your time.
(39:14):
Just just do be aware of the change in volume. There.
Uh no, I've got let's see, we've got one other thing. Oh,
I have one of one total totally irrelevant thing that
I want to point out irrelevant. We'll see. Okay. Now,
you've heard people say that they cut all of the
(39:35):
niceties out of the McLaren P one. However, Scott, that
is not completely true. There are two cup holders, two
couples also carbon five. I never would have guessed that
there were a couplders in that car. Well, you know,
sometimes when you're driving, you want to make sure that
you have your you know, your slurpee or your I
just can't believe it. I can't believe Okay. My problem
(39:57):
with that is that why would you ever put food
or drink in this vehicle? That's one thing. Yeah, sure,
that's that's the huge thing to me. Sure or be
distracted by a drink that you're trying to trying to
slurp down while you're while you're going a hundred and
eighty six miles an hour or something. Yeah, not that
you would be doing that, but you know what I mean.
It's it's definitely not the place to have a food
and beverage. I wouldn't think, Well, that's amazing, man, I
(40:20):
hadn't read that anywhere. That has two coup holders now,
but it doesn't have a glove box and no carpets,
right yeah, and thin glass and thin glass and unlacquered
carbon fiber. Does have hv A c though, but and
it does have room for your big gulp. Well, yeah,
you gotta have your big gulp if you're if you're
in a one and a beef jerky holder, that's what
(40:41):
the other one looks. Looks like a vase, but it's
a beef jerky holder, all right. So you know, I
think we don't know if there's other things. And I
had a couple of questions actually that I wanted to
ask you. Yeah, you had you said one that we
really couldn't forget. Well, the first one and I'm I'm
kind of eliminating this one, but I'll tell you what
it was, just because I've kind of talked myself out
of this one, and I initially wrote this down when
we first started digging into this car, and I was wondering,
(41:03):
if you think it's just, you know, by making this
a hybrid car instead of just an outright supercar, you
know that that uh, if they had just stuck with
the gasoline engine versus adding the hybrid technology to it,
do you think that by adding that technology, they're just
adding complexity to an already complex vehicle. Because supercars are
complex to begin with. I mean they're they're not anything
that's mass produced obviously. I mean it's something that's it's
(41:25):
difficult to put together, and everything is well thought out,
um extremely well thought out, but but it's just just
adding too much complexity. And I think after that top
Gear review that I watched, I realized that that I
don't know, it seems like an absurd question now because
it's not. It's not that it's too complex. They did
it for a reason. I mean, this this thing works
together so well, and it works so perfectly, and that
(41:48):
you know, the the electric motor it fills in the
gaps of the of the gasoline engine when it's not
at its peak performance the electric motors taking over, so
it's not like a typical hybrid in that case, you know,
where it's just kind of laying in wait. This thing
is actively helping along the way. So when you're shifting
and in between gears, the electric motors kicking in to
help keep the speed up and keep the revs up
(42:08):
and keep it you know, it's just helping you in
all these different ways. Well, I think I see what
you're saying, because it's it's a cohesive hole. It's not
an electric motors shoehorned into a car. Yeah, I guess so,
I mean, it's it's I and I kind of I
think he answered your question. I did. I gotta. I
got away from that one thinking that maybe that's that's
kind of silly to think of it that way. And
why else would you know Porsche and Ferrari be doing
(42:30):
the same thing. I mean, obviously they're in competition with you,
with each other. They're not doing it to create an
eco friendly vehicle by any means. They're they're really doing
it because this is the latest and greatest technology and
they can take advantage of that technology. Okay, Yeah, I
think you've answered it better than I could have. Well,
I don't know. I talked myself out of that one,
really and in a lot of ways. So what's the
last question here? All right? And this is the final
(42:51):
thing that I want to kind of wrap up with.
And I want you to think about this, and I
want our listeners to think about this. Okay, So I
don't have to answer right away, No, not really. But
but I wonder if now this is a special a car.
It's it's I mean, three seventy five in the whole world,
there's gonna be far more, um you know, portion nineteen
producers gonna be nine eighteen to those, and the law
Ferrari there's gonna be four of those. There's gonna be
(43:12):
three seventy five of these. But I wonder if owning
a car like this, something's limited edition, you know, whether
it's one of those three or not, does something like
this become an all consuming effort for the owner? I mean,
does it become something that you can only think about,
you only think about while you're awake, you know, and
while you're sleeping that you know, it's it's constantly on
your mind, like, you know, where is my car now?
(43:32):
Am I really getting nine hundred and three horsepower out
of it? Um? What am I gonna do to it next? Um?
You know you're worried about where it's parked. You're worried
about Um, you know who's who's looking at it right now?
Are they? Are they you know, touching the windows or whatever?
I mean? Is it something that you would be concerned about,
like while you're sleeping, Like where's where it's parked? If
it's safe? Um, when you're driving it, you're gonna be
worried about people bumping into you, because that happens in traffic.
(43:53):
You know. I just I've been bumped into a few times.
Imagine if you were in a million dollar car, what
would happens? So, you know, before you own it and
even maybe you know, of course during but even maybe
after you own it. Would you think about this car
all the time? Is it something that would just be
kind of all consuming to you? Because I think about
my project car. I think about my my daily driver
a lot, which is kind of silly, But I think
(44:15):
about repairs I have to make. I think about my
drive home, you know, like maybe I better check the
tire pressure. I know I'm gonna need gas and things
like that. It's it's mundane things. And in this car,
I would think you would think about, like, well, I
gotta take it in for service because they told me
after five miles I have to bring it back to
the McLaren dealer for a I don't know, fifteen hundred
dollar service, you know where they check the tires and
make sure that you know, my eight thousand dollar rims
(44:36):
are still straight, and plumber and everything and make sure
that all that's correct. And I think that this thing
would be so heavy on your mind that you would
maybe only think about that. I see you are saying
kind of a ring of power thing like token. I
don't know, maybe it becomes your precious. Uh so that's
that is a great question. And what do you think?
Or if you are listening and you own a rare vehicle,
(44:59):
you're elf, do you find yourself in the same situation?
Is your concern for your car increased by an order
of magnitude? Am I overthinking it? Or is I mean,
is this is something like you know, of course you're
buying something like this, that's probably a drop in the bucket,
you know, as far as your checkbook is. So maybe
it's nothing. Maybe it's a throwaway, you know, even at
even at that point, it's a it's something to show
up to a party in and show off a little bit,
(45:21):
and that's it. Well, we are going to find out. Well,
I'm gonna take some time and think about this before
I answered in full, and listeners would like you to
do the same thing. So let us know if you
think that owning a supercar like this would make you
crazy obsessive. Uh. And you can tell us about this
on Facebook and Twitter. Check out our website car Stuff
(45:42):
Show dot com, and you can write an email with
your answer to this question directly. Our email address is
car stuff and Discovery dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, how stuff works dot com.
Let us know do you think? Send an email to
podcast at how stuffworks dot com. M M m h
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
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