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M c L A R E N ’S R O A D C A R
A n A U T O C A R& M o t o r B o o k
M c L A R E N ’ S R O A D C A R
A n A U T O C A R& M o t o r B o o k
FI McLAREN'S ROAD CAR
E d it e d a n d p r o d u c e d b y M ic h a e l H a r v e y a n d M a r k H a r r o p D e s ig n e d b y P a u l H a r p i n / T h e M a g a z in e C o n s u l t a n c y
S t u d io P h o t o g r a p h y b y A n d r e w Y e a d o n W r it t e n b y P e t e r R o b i n s o n . K e it h H o w a r d .
A n d r e w F r a n k e l a n d S te v e C r o p le y P o r t r a i t s by P a u l D e b o is
D e t a i l P h o t o g r a p h y by D a v id G ee A c t i o n P h o t o g r a p h y by D a v id G o ld m a n
D e v e lo p m e n t P h o t o g r a p h y by W i l l i a m H a r r i s T e c h n i c a l I l l u s t r a t i o n s by Ia n H o w a t s o n
C o v e r by H u b b a r d P r i n t C o l o u r O r i g i n a t i o n by L it h o s p e e d
P r i n t e d by E T H e r o n & Co L t d P u b l i s h e r P h i l ip p a S u m n e r
El MCLAREN S ROAD CAR IS PRESENTED FREE W ITH AUTOCAR & MOTOR 2 MARCH 1994 PUBLISHED b y HAYMARKET MOTORING PUBLICATIONS LTD UNDER LICENCE EROM
HAYMARKET MAGAZINES LTD COPYRIGHT HAYMARKET MAGAZINES LTD 1994
6
C h a pt er O ne231MPH
3 0 seconds that made road car history. By Andrew Frankel
11
C h a pt er T w o
GENESISA lost race, a late plane and a 30-year dream realised. By Peter Robinson
19
C h a pt er T hreeA LOOK TO LAST
Pencils were the last thing the designer needed. By Peter Robinson
27
C h a pt er Fo u rALBERT
An ugly duckling proves the concept works. By Keith Howard
35
C h a pt er F ive
EDWARDBMW’s awesome V12 comes to McLaren’s rescue. By Keith Howard
43
C h a pt er S ixXP1
First prototype bom at Christmas, destroyed by Easter. By Keith Howard
51
C h a pt er S evenTHE ROAD TO 001
Production starts, with a little help from Ferrari. Bv Steve Cropley
59
C h a pt er E ig h t
SELLING THE DREAMYou get more than an FI for your £540,000. Bv Andrew Frankel
67
C h a pt er N in e
THE POWER AND THE GLORYThe vital statistics o f a McLaren F I. Compiled by Andrew Frankel
72
7
C O N T E N T S
GORDONMURRAYNow that the first FI has been delivered to a customer, we have time to reflect on what has been achieved.
Four years ago, Ron Dennis, Mansour Ojjeh, Creighton Brown and myself were discussing the FI, talking about what sort o f car it should be and what sort o f engine it should have. But the most important outcome o f those early sessions was the idea that, in forming McLaren Cars, we would be creating a new ‘British car company’. A company involved in leading-edge car design, using all M cLaren’s experience and technology.
It was decided that our first product would be a Super Sports Car to end all supercars, a unique and advanced vehicle that would be usable, fast and safe. But, above all, the FI would be a pure driver’s car.
Analysing the F 1 today and driving the car, I think we have achieved our goal. We didn’t accept the best as good enough at any stage in the design and development phases and I believe this shows in the final product.
What is much more important, though, is the fact that, in producing the F I, I believe McLaren Cars has shown that the team we have brought together and the company we have created will indeed be a leading force in pushing forward the boundaries o f automotive design.Gordon Murray, technical director, McLaren Cars
C H A P T E R 1
30 seconds that made road car history
231MPH
l&Omph. select sixth...
Palmer at rest (left) ami
heading beyond 230m ph
CHAPTER 1(right middle joined tests
11
The most extraordinary part o f the event
that took place that day, 8 August 1993, is
that it actually happened. It was not
planned, nor was it even mooted as a
possibility. And, had Dr Jonathan Palmer’s
flight back to Rome been scheduled for a
quarter o f an hour earlier, it would never
have happened at all.
The Nardo test track is a savage place.
The fortunate reach it by flying to Rome,
catching a connection to Brindisi on the
heel o f Italy and driving to its location on
the in-step, near a place thoughtfully named
Gallipoli. The less lucky drive through the
desert that makes up the bulk o f Italy’s
landscape south o f Rome. It’s a place o f
such poverty that many Italian politicians
want to devolve and disown it. You’d never
go there unless you had to.
Yet if you asked a computer to select the
absolute theoretical ideal site o f a European
test track, its choice would be few miles
indeed from Nardo. It has everything: the
year-round Saharan heat tests cooling
systems to a level where you can be quite
sure that, if your car will keep its cool here,
it will do so anywhere. You can almost
guarantee it will be dry, too, and the ability
to run tests safe in the knowledge that rain
w on’t wash away your results can be worth
millions to a leading manufacturer. And
it’s secure: in the middle o f nowhere,
nearly a thousand miles from Italy’s car
industry in the north, it will be an unusually
Speed limits are in force
most of the time at the
Nardo te st track and JP
had a plane to catch: it was
now or never for McLaren
C H A P T E R 1 |
dedicated spy photographer that camps out
at Nardo on the off-chance o f catching a
prototype at work.
There was one further compelling reason
that persuaded McLaren to decamp to
Nardo last summer: its size. With dirt
cheap land prices and few residents to
complain, Fiat, which owns and runs
Nardo, could afford to build a proving
ground large enough so cars could not only
run non-stop at sustained velocity but also
w here that velocity could be higher than
anyone then could have envisaged a road
car would ever reach.
So Fiat built a bowl, the only structure
which will allow constant speeds to be
maintained indefinitely. But where
Britain’s bowl, Millbrook, was constructed
with a two-mile circumference, Nardo takes
7.5 miles to circumnavigate. And where,
at Millbrook, the curve o f the circle and the
angle o f the banking cancel each other out
at precisely 1 OOmph — the speed at which
you can remove your hands from the wheel
as the car is effectively travelling in a
straight line — at Nardo the “hands-off’
speed is 150mph. Which means that at
around 177mph, Millbrook’s upper limit
for the very bravest, at Nardo you’d be
hardly trying. Which is just as well if
you’re in a McLaren FI because, at that
speed, you’re not even in top gear.
The real purpose behind McLaren’s visit
to Nardo was as close to boring as any
C H A P T E R 1
aspect o f the incredible FI project comes.
The team needed to perfect the car’s engine
mapping under full load conditions. Which
meant prolonged excursions at maximum
effort in maximum heat. Which meant
Nardo. The weather did not disappoint,
providing temperatures which never sank
below 4 0 deg C and made the air around
your body substantially hotter than its core
temperature.
W orking in such conditions was hellish,
especially if your name was not Jonathan
Palmer; for him, there w as at least the
rew'ard and relief o f frequent high speed
excursions onto the banking. For the others,
from designer Gordon Murray and his
engineers to the men from BMW looking
after the car’s engine to the technicians
from TAG Electronics whose wizardry
governed that engine, there was nothing to
alleviate the heat and monotony. You
w aited while Palmer made his runs, studied
the results from the telemetry readouts,
made your adjustments and then waited
patiently again in the awful heat while
Palmer put your theory to the test.
Yet, all the time, everyone’s heart was
beating just a mite faster than you’d expect
in the circumstances. There was
expectation in N ardo’s thick and arid air,
a hope bom from five years o f waiting for
an answer and that, this weekend, they’d
finally find it. Every last person felt it and
no one said a word. Palmer, circulating
high above everyone’s head on the
banking, felt it too.
The car he was driving was XP3, the
third experimental prototype FI that
McLaren had built. Since XP1 had been
destroyed in an almighty accident in
Namibia and XP2 was largely at the
disposal o f BMW (it, too, was later crashed
but under rather more controlled
conditions; into a wall at MIRA during
homologation tests), it was to this silver car
that the bulk o f the FI programme’s
development mileage was entrusted.
Behind Palmer’s head chattered the
hard-pressed, but still game, 6 .1-litre BMW
Motorsport V I2, specially created for the
McLaren. This third unit out o f the
Motorsport department was not, it has to be
said, in ideal condition for what Palmer
was just beginning to contemplate, being
perhaps 50bhp short o f the 627bhp the
production pow erplant would boast, but,
under the circumstances, it was all they
had. If he was to discover just how fast the
FI really would go, then it would be in
XP3. Or not at all.
The grounds for not doing the run
towered over the single reason for having a
go like the Sears Block over a bungalow.
McLaren was running out o f time for
starters. Nardo is not the kind o f place
where, if you fall a few hours behind
schedule one day, you can get up a little
earlier the next day and catch up. Six days
a week, Nardo carries a 150m ph speed
limit: only on Sunday can you reach for the
heavens. And there was no question o f
McLaren delaying the entire FI programme
just to gather a piece o f interesting but
ultimately academic information. Shadows
were lengthening and Palmer’s plane
would not wait.
The next consideration was the track.
Nardo’s surface is far removed from the
slick-smooth tarmac o f the test driver's
dreams. It’s concrete, the lanes are narrow
and. much above 180mph. rather bumpy.
The protective barriers at the edge do little
to inspire confidence either: the two rows
o f Armco. reckoned Palmer, would not
hang on for too long to an FI spinning at
considerably more than 200m ph.
And then there was the car. Even on
N ardo's vast banking, at the speed the
computer said it could do. the FI would be
cornering very hard indeed. Though the
computer confirmed that, mechanically and
aerodynamically. there was no reason why
XP3 should not be stable at such a speed,
the computer would not be driving the car.
1 3
McLaren went to Nardo for
exhaustive checks on the
F I’s engine mapping at
BMW’s request. Top speeds
were not on the agenda...
The computer would not have to decide
what to do if a tyre let go at that speed. The
computer would be safe, the car would be
doing 225mph.
Only one person can make a decision
like that. As Palmer puts it: “This is not
like running a maximum speed on a
conventional car and no one was going to
come up to me and ask me to have a go.
After all, if something does go wrong at
that sort o f speed, you’re looking at a fairly
major accident.” Aside from the obviously
horrific personal implications, if that had
happened the effect on the FI project could
have been catastrophic.
But, in the end, as soon as it was clear
the work o f the day was done and there
was time for just one more run, there was
never really much doubt. All Palmer said
was “I’ll just go and have a look,” and
everyone knew.
When the ambient air is 4 0 deg C, a
blown tyre is both the most likely and most
dangerous source o f trouble so slicks were
bolted on to XP3 for the run. Once they
had been checked for flaws, Palmer
climbed back on board and went to work.
Between standstill and 180mph a
McLaren F I, even one with only
570-580bhp, moves faster than your brain.
Every time you look at the speedometer, it
registers around 20m ph higher than your
head’s best estimate. Slamming through the
first five gears, Palmer probably passed
60m ph in under four seconds and was the
far side o f 1 OOmph about three seconds
later. He was not trying to break any
acceleration records, he was merely being
mindful o f the fact that the less time the
tyres had to overheat, the greater the
chance o f avoiding that moment when you
realise it has all gone terribly wrong.
At 180mph, Palmer selected sixth,
hammered the accelerator home for the last
time and readied him self for an experience
that neither 85 grands prix nor running a
Porsche 962 flat down the Mulsanne
Straight could prepare him for.
Up to 200m ph, XP3 is on familiar
ground. It had been here many times during
the day simply because the tests required
the throttle to be held wide open for twenty
seconds at a time, all the excuse an FI
needs to work itself up to such speeds.
Palmer keeps the car as far up the banking
as possible for maximum cornering help
while still keeping a distance from the
Armco which would, in the event o f
disaster, at least give him some say in the
ensuing event.
Now the needle o f X P3’s revcounter
reveals daylight the far side o f 6500rpm .
The engine is pumping about 500bhp o f
four cam, 48-valve V 12 power into the rear
tyres as the speedometer climbs towards
21 Omph. Palmer is surprised that the rate o f
acceleration remains so strong. He starts to
doubt the computer but reminds him self
that this is no high-downforce racer whose
acceleration tails o ff dramatically at high
speed. Even at 215m ph, 7000rpm and
535bhp there is still no sign o f XP3
giving up.
At 225m ph, the speed the wind-tunnel
computations said the F 1 would retire to
the pavilion. Palmer realises that he has
only 200rpm to go before the rev-limiter
cuts X P3’s fuel supply. His hands can’t
help trying to crush the steering wheel even
though the McLaren is tracking straight,
with no sign o f instability or even
understeer. The wheel feels lighter than
he’s used to, for sure, but information
about the car’s attitude to the track flows
through its rim as consistently as it had at
180mph, a million years ago.
The last few mph take longer. Not even
Palmer has travelled at this speed before
and as his eyes constantly flicker between
road and instruments, he realises the
computer was wrong. It would be the car’s
gearing, not its stability nor its sub-standard
engine, which would finally decide how
fast the FI would go. He reaches the
maximum and decides to hold it there for
two surreal miles simply to absorb the
experience.
Thirty seconds later, Palmer lifts o ff the
throttle and eases XP3 back down to earth.
Within three minutes he is blipping the
throttle down the pit lane and in another
two XP3 is stationary, McLaren staff racing
to tap into its data-recording systems to
find out, exactly, how fast XP3 went.
The answer was 231 mph. No one knows
quite how fast it would have gone with
627bhp and longer gearing. McLaren itself
refuses to speculate beyond 237m ph. And
to the people at Nardo that day, it couldn’t
have mattered less. Though no official
records had been broken, the people from
McLaren, BMW and TAG knew that,
without any doubt at all, they had created
the fastest road car in the world, one that
beat the previous record, albeit unofficially,
by some 18mph. And suddenly all the
ghastliness that comes hand in hand with
testing at Nardo w as as nothing. Their car
had outperformed every forecast and that
w’as more than enough. For now.
P atoef has drive* grand
p ra aad la Mam c a n —
180fnpta pkts a no itraager
ta U a — M nothing
n r » n d Mai far 231*9*1
1 4
A lost race, a late plane and a 30-year dream realised
GENESIS
CHAPTER 2
1 9
Gordon Murray drew his
first sports car aged 15.
His sketches for the
ultimate supercar were
finally realised in 19S8
On Sunday 11 September 1988, McLaren
made history by losing. Two laps from the
chequered flag in the Italian Grand Prix,
Ayrton Senna’s attempt to lap a
back-marker ended with the cars touching
and the McLaren spinning off into oblivion.
Berger’s Ferrari won by default.
As it turned out, Monza was the only
race McLaren didn’t win that year: 15 out
o f 16, one victory from perfection. End o f
story. Well, not quite.
Later that same afternoon, while waiting
for their plane in the bar o f M ilan’s Linate
airport, four men began a casual
conversation that would create the w orld’s
ultimate supercar. McLaren boss Ron
Dennis, fellow director Creighton Brown,
Gordon Murray and Mansour Ojjeh — the
powerhouse behind McLaren — actually
spent little time mulling over thoughts o f
what might have been.
“We were talking about the future,”
remembers Murray. “You know how it is
when you’re stuck in an airport; each one
has a captive audience with the other.”
At the time, Dennis was looking at
M cLaren’s longer-term future and
considering ways to broaden M cLaren’s
engineering base to take advantage o f the
team’s increasing reputation for success
and excellence.
There was talk, that day, o f McLaren
involvement in another form o f racing:
Indycars or long distance sports car racing.
Murray w asn’t enthusiastic.
“We were on a hiding to nothing after
winning 15 out o f 16 GPs. I f we didn’t win
people would say what are you doing, if we
won they’d say so what...I w asn’t keen.”
The choice seemed to be between an
R &D centre like Porsche’s, or even moving
into aerospace. Until.
“1 really can’t remember the exact
conversation,” claims Murray, “Even who
started it, but the first time the sports car
thing came up was at Linate. It was clear
that Ron and Mansour had always
harboured a desire to build a sports car.
I’ve wanted to do one since I was kid.
Probably would have, except I fell into
racing at such an early age.
“When I look back through my college
books they are full o f drawings o f cars,
gearboxes, engines, motorbikes and electric
guitars, in about equal amounts. Even then
I was fascinated by packaging. The very
first car I drew, when I was about 15, was a
little wooden monocoque city car powered
by a 50cc engine. It was wood so I could
build it myself. Then I went into slot car
racing, then go-karting — there are so
many phases from 16 to 19 — then I built a
Lotus 7-type sports car, which I raced for
two years.
“It was in that period that I did a little
sketch o f a mid-engined sports car with this
hip and shoulder clearance thing and three
seats, which is basically the whole concept
o f the F I. That’s where it comes from.”
Murray had left Brabham for McLaren at
the end o f 1986. “When I joined McLaren,
Ron told me he didn’t want me to look at
the next seasons but to look at where the
company will be in five years.”
In 1988 McLaren wras restructured,
staffing levels rose from 80 to 150 after a
massive investment in R &D , but Murray
wras looking for another challenge aw ay
from racing.
“In 1978 I stood in the drawing office at
Brabham on my own and drew every part
o f the car. When I left M cLaren’s racing
department we had 30 people in the
drawing office. There’s no such thing as a
The concept of a central
‘single seated driving
position and passengers on
either side was fundamental
to Murray's FI dreams
2 0
C H A P T E R 2 I
racing car designer any more; there’s a
technical director and lots o f racing car
designers. I was becoming a technical
manager and not a designer.
“These days, it’s so much harder to make
any steps at all, let alone big steps. I liked
the cavalier days in the ’70s when, if you
had an idea in the bath, you’d get it drawn,
put it on the car and find a second and a
half a lap.”
His three-year contract was also coming
up for renewal. Murray had achieved all his
goals in racing. Then came the sports car.
“The thing that appealed to me was that
it had to be the very best car McLaren
could make, regardless o f cost.
“We could have jum ped on the
bandwagon when the market for supercars
went crazy and built a British-Italian car
using a steel frame and aluminium body,
with a conventional layout, that weighed
1400-1500kg and used somebody else’s
modified V8 engine, stuck a McLaren
badge on the thing, sold it for £150,000 and
made a lot o f money.”
That w asn’t M cLaren’s brief. A car on
its own w asn’t enough. It should be borne
of a new British car company, too.
From the beginning Murray only
sketched a three seater. “I remember
getting quite excited and doing lots o f
drawings and handwritten notes on timing
and budgets.”
Together with Creighton Brown, Murray
moved into a building in W oking across the
road from the racing HQ. “Creighton was
very good at organising and taking care o f
setting the company up, allow ing me to get
on with designing the car.” Murray begun
to think about the people he’d need to help
fulfill his dream.
“In areas I didn’t have expertise — like
body engineering — I knew there w as no
point in re-inventing the wheel so I went
looking for a body engineer and found
Barry- Lett from Lotus.”
Harold Dermott (the former head o f
M idas) became production boss, three years
before he’d actually begin building a car. in
order to follow the entire development
process. Bruce McIntosh, w ho'd been in
racing for years, was hired to set up an
R &D department to build all the
prototypes. Mark Roberts, a technical
illustrator, also came from Lotus to
organise the technical systems. But
McLaren still didn't have a designer.
“On the styling side I didn’t know what
to do,” explains Murray. McLaren went
public about the car in March 1989 and
Murray spoke to a number o f designers.
“I knew exactly the sort o f car I wanted,
the shape, the feel, but all the designers I
talked to were so narrow minded. They
wouldn’t consider packaging or
aerodynamics and I knew they wouldn’t
last five minutes with me.”
Maybe, Murray decided, the answer was
to employ a bright student.
“I knew we w eren’t going to touch the
styling until w'e’d worked out the package
and done the w ind tunnel w ork. I ’d drive
the design and he’d do the renderings.”
To find the right student, Murray
contacted Lotus Elan designer Peter
Stevens. “He was the original art college
student in this country,” says Murray,
“Knows everybody and been everywhere.
I’d w orked w ith him doing the Brabham
graphics years in the early ’80s.
“We meet over a few beers and talked
about the car, without me giving too much
aw ay, and in the end he said, T ’m the guy
you want.’ Honestly, I hadn’t considered
Peter until then. Then I thought, I know the
guy, the ego thing isn’t important to him
and he can manage the styling studio.”
Murray' relished the prospect o f w orking
with a small team again: “I can be a bit
dictatorial. I know what I want and how to
get it and the idea o f working with four or
five hand-picked people again really-
appealed."
With the key staff installed in the new
W oking factory7, Murray set aside 12 March
1990 as the day — a now famous 10-hour
downloading o f his ideas.
“Until then I’d driven everybody mad by
insisting they set up all the necessary
systems. They w ere getting very’ frustrated.
Murray’s design objectives
included a 1000kg weight,
1.8m width, minimum
overhangs and a low polar
moment of inertia
C H A P T E R 2
2 1
wanting to know about what we were going
to build. I talked philosophy. I told them
we wanted to build the best sports car in
the world. Myself, Ron and the others had
already set down one critical objective: it
had to be a driver’s car, which immediately
ruled out offset controls and poor visibility.
1 told them about the three seats. We also
want a long-legged, grand touring car.
“The other design objectives were more
detailed. The weight target was 1000kg, we
wanted to keep the width to 1,8m and the
overhangs at an absolute minimum because
1 wanted the polar moment o f inertia to be
low. 1 also wanted to maintain the centre of
pressure position, which production cars
never address and is half the reason for
high-speed instability problems. In fact, if
you make a list o f what I wanted to
achieve, make a list o f everything you think
is bad about mid-engined sports cars.”
What Murray didn’t have was an engine.
“O f course, the engine was a priority from
the beginning. I knew absolutely that I did
not want a turbo so we made a list o f those
who can build high-revving, large capacity,
normally aspirated engines capable of
lOObhp per litre. It’s a short list: Honda,
BMW and Ferrari. Not Porsche, not
Mercedes, though Lamborghini gets close.”
Honda, o f course, made most sense with
the racing connection.
“I had several meetings with the
technical people at Tochigi and the only
discussion was whether it should be a V I0
or a V I2. In those days I set 450bhp as a
minimum. The F40 and 959 were
450-480bhp and heavier so I knew w e’d
have a better power-to-weight ratio.
“Things progressed very well with
Honda. They discarded the idea o f using a
racing engine because if you try turning a
racing engine into a road-car engine you
need to change pistons, rods, use a different
concept o f rings, change the valve seating,
the exhaust system and add all the emission
gear. It’s cheaper and easier to start from
scratch and do a lOObhp per litre engine,
than detune a 200bhp per litre racing one.
“The funny thing with the Honda engine
programe was they never really said no. It
just sort o f drifted into oblivion. I think
they were nervous about the green
movement. Then Jaguar and Bugatti came
along w ith 550bhp and even though I knew
they were going to be 50 per cent heavier. I
started to get nervous about engine
capacity1 and increased it to around
5.3-litres from a V 12. Honda really started
to go cool on the idea.
“We had packaged the car around a
five-litre V12 and time was short. We
started talking to others manufacturers.
Three were serious, and one [an unnamed
Japanese maker] was very serious and
prepared to build a 5.3-litre V12 from
scratch”.
Fate intervened. For an unremembered
reason, Murray decided to go to
Hockenheim for the 1990 German Grand
Prix at the end o f July. It was the first race
he’d attended since the end o f the 1988
season. There and, he swears, quite by
accident, he meet Paul Rosche, BMW
Motorsport’s engine designer. The same
man who designed the BMW engine that
powered the Murray-designed and Piquet
driven Brabham BT52 to the championship
title in 1983.
“Paul asked me, ‘How’s the engine
going?’ and I told him I didn't really know,
that we were running out o f time and still
didn’t have a decision.
“Paul smiled and told me, ‘W e could do
the engine for you’
At the time, Motorsport was working on
four-valve heads for BM W ’s disappointing
five-litre V I2 and were encouraged by the
results. “But when they showed me that
engine it was too heavy and too big. We
were going to use the engine as a semi-
structural member and I wanted a dry sump
and a much higher rev limit o f seven five.
‘W e’ll do a new engine’, Paul said.”
It was Rosche who suggested going to
six-litres to guarantee 550bhp. Murray
agreed but only if the engine could be
limited to 600m m in length. “They have
this amazing ability to produce w'onderful.
free-rew ing, gutsy and reliable engines.
The technology is in their blood.”
Today, BM W ’s V 12 produces 627bhp
and 4701b ft o f torque at 5600rpm with
60 per cent o f that — in other words 2821b
ft, or more than a Jaguar four-litre six’s
maximum torque — at only 1500rpm.
“If you move the throttle more than
quarter o f an inch in any gear all hell
breaks lose, instantly, even in sixth.” says
Murray. “That’s when you get the F40
feeling. Yet, I ’d also be happy to drive the
FI into London on a wet Friday night.
“One o f the early prototypes broke the
throttle cable and I drove it 15 miles back
to W oking in sixth gear on idle. At 1 OOmph
you can hardly feel the throttle is open at
all. It’s a true dual purpose supercar.”
During this engine developm ent o f
course, Murray and his team were also
w orking out how to fit three people in ...
In Hare* 1989 . McUren
revealed its plans to build
the supercar. The engine,
packaging and styling had
yet to be decided...
2 2
C H A P T E R 3
McLaren spent months
defining the package —
cabin, wheelbase, height —
before Peter Stevens
(left) started sketching
Pencils were the last thing the designer needed
A LOOK TO LAST
CHAPTER 3
2 7
In the summer o f
1988 Peter Stevens
was finishing off his
work on the Lotus
Elan. H e’d heard
stories about a
M cLaren but thought
no more than "that’s
interesting”.
“I assumed they
had a designer in
mind and didn’t
make any attempt to
put m yself forward,”
he says.
Then the phone
rang and it was
Murray asking Peter how he should go
about finding a designer.
“I’m sure he had no idea before we
talked that 1 could do the job, but the more
he told me the more interested I was. W e’d
worked together with Bemie [Ecclestone]
on tweaking the lines o f various Brabhams
and knew we understood each other.”
Before he could start at McLaren,
Stevens had agreed to design the Jaguar
XJR-15 for Tom Walkinshaw, a concept he
and Murray felt could contribute to an
understanding o f the McLaren.
So it w asn’t until March 1990, just in
time to be present for M urray’s 10-hour
briefing on the philosophy behind the car,
that Peter Stevens began work at Woking.
Like grand prix cars, this McLaren was
going to be designed around a package and
in the wind tunnel. Everything was to be
beautiful in itself, displaying quality that,
until now, you only found in Formula 1.
One month before Stevens another Lotus
refugee, Barry Lett, had signed up. Lett had
worked on the Ford R S200 and the Jaguar
F-type before Lotus’s M 300 supercar and
specialised in packaging and details.
Murray had w'anted his small team o f eight
design engineers to feel like his old team at
Brabham and that meant having a key man,
“a shadow” in M urray’s words. Lett
became the shadow , constantly helping
Murray to climb the steep learning curve o f
road car design.
"What Gordon set before us was a
mechanical specification with a large
capacity engine and transverse gearbox to
keep the masses within the wheelbase.”
says Stevens. “He also w anted three seats,
although at that stage w e weren’t sure it
could be made to work.
“We literally started by putting chairs on
the floor and sitting next to each other.
Stevens didn’t draw for
months so as not to let
styling interfere with his
and Murray's painstaking
wind tunnel research
using bits o f wood to represent the confines
o f the car. We knew the concept would live
or die on whether or not the driver could
actually get in and sit comfortably. The
next step was to use racing buckets, so we
could experiment with the door sills.”
An adjustable, full-sized wooden buck
was made, but without pillars or any other
styling clues so as not to prejudge the way
the car would look. This established the
body height at 1 140mm. Murray also set a
width restriction o f 1.80m and refused to
enlarge the car.
(H e eventually had to when the clay
model was discovered to be 20m m too
w'ide. Murray was faced with the choice o f
scrapping all the w ork already done on the
project or re-engineering the suspension.
After “one o f the toughest nights on the
project”, he decided to alter the suspension.)
Everybody wanted the three-seat/central
driving position idea to work. Murray, Lett
and Stevens were, however, opposed to the
idea o f off-setting the passenger seats from
the car’s long axis, but were tiring o f ever
finding a solution to the passengers feeling
‘outside’ the car.
“We worked to make it feasible,” says
Stevens. “W e w eren’t negative about the
idea and looking for ways to disprove the
sense o f it.” One o f M urray’s justifications
was an ideal driving position: “Ron and the
directors desperately wanted the single
seater thing to work.”
Stevens knew the target: “We wanted to
give something close to the FI driving
experience. It’s not an FI car for the road,
but uses the same uncompromising
approach to the design and construction.
So you end up sitting in the middle w ith
everything equi-distant from the wheel.
You can see the comers and judge distance
so much more easily than in a conventional
supercar.”
The answers came
when, rather than
endless re-arranging
o f the seats, the
solution lay in the
architecture o f the
roof spider. “W e just
moved the A-pillars
out so that the
passenger’s view-
forward was ‘inside’
the pillar. It worked
perfectly.” says
Murray.
Stevens admits
that at this stage he
Four different 3/10ths
models were tested in the
National Physics Lab's wind
tunnel — just across the
road from Autocar & Motor
C H A P T E R 3
hadn’t opened his
sketch book. “I
deliberately didn’t do
any drawings. I
didn’t want any
preconceptions o f
how it was going to
be. We still didn’t
know about the
engine, though we
did have our
transverse gearbox.
The engineers had
come up with an
ingenious offset final
drive gear alongside
the flywheel and that
made the powertrain incredibly compact.”
M eanwhile Lett had begun to finalise the
cabin package. From Lett's layout, Stevens
knew where the front axle was and where
the driver’s feet were. “That’s the exciting
thing. If you put the driver in the middle
you can move his feet much further
forward. The passengers are sitting where
the driver and passenger are sitting in a
conventional car. So for no extra length we
get the third person in.
“The moment BMW gave us an engine
length w'e knew the wheelbase. That’s
when we went to the wind tunnel.”
Still no sketching.
“In the past, I would have begun drawing
but then you compromise and force the
design. Sometimes you fall in love with the
design too soon and try to force it to fit an
inappropriate package.”
Stevens was kept busy building a 3/10ths
scale model for the wind tunnel. The cabin
area w as known as well as the desired
windscreen angle, height and width, so they
took a series o f different rear glass slopes,
various height tails, four alternative front
ends, three front undersides plus some body
mounted wings (just to the see i f they
might be necessary) to the tunnel.
Using M cLaren’s laser ground clearance
and attitude setting equipment, they w ent
through every' combination o f setting. The
target was a sensible 0.35C d with the
centre o f pressure almost coincident with
the centre o f gravity. Murray wanted 1601b
o f downforce at 150mph and very' little
change to the centre o f downforce as the
pitch or attitude o f the car altered.
Pop-up headlights w ere soon discarded
as dangerous. At the extremely high speeds
that the car would achieve, they introduced
a massive increase in dow n force ahead o f
the lights by moving the centre o f
pressure beyond the nose o f the car.
It soon became apparent that any holes
under the car at the tail were disastrous in
reducing downforce. However, it was still
necessary to get cool air to pass through the
engine compartment to counter catalytic
converters that reach 700deg C.
“We talked about the Brabham fan car
and wondered if the same idea might work
here. Gordon w asn’t sure if the fan should
suck or blow7. So I went out and bought a
ducted fan kit for a model aeroplane and
carefully built it into the model with a
reversible motor so we could run it at
different speeds. With a three-piece diffuser
in place under the rear we were surprised to
find it had an immediate, beneficial effect
on downforce and lower drag.”
Despite now knowing the height o f the
tail, Stevens had yet to pull out his crayons.
Barry' Lett w as continuing to w ork on the
package o f the car, telling both Murray and
Stevens what they could and couldn’t get
away with on details such as tail height.
“Because I was doing the wind tunnel
work I w asn’t aggrieved that someone was
imposing restrictions on any future design,”
says Stevens. “We reached a height o f the
tail I was happy with and I knew if I went
any higher it was going to start to look
like a dog.
“The thing about Gordon is, he is
prepared to try something new' and, if it
works, incorporate it into the car. That’s
one reason why w e made such good
progress.”
McLaren built four different 3 lOths
scale models — each getting more
representative o f how the car w ould finally
look — for wind tunnel testing and ran
more than 1100 tests. By late 1990 it was
becoming clear to Stevens how the car was
going to look. It w as time.
Stevens (standing) and
Murray with tape drawing.
The two agreed on cars
they liked and the classical
look they wanted for the FI
C H A P T E R 3
door ends up. We did loads o f videoing o f
people climbing in and out to see what they
did and then put bits o f door in the way, all
without knowing how it would hinge.”
The toe board lacked any serious
structure so it was impossible to use
conventional hinges.
“Bruce McIntosh [M urray’s ex-chief
mechanic at Brabham and another key F 1
player] made a small welding rod frame,”
says Stevens, “o f the door and we all stood
around and held different bits and waggled
it around to see what would happen. What
w e’ve ended up with is a bit like a Porsche
962, though we don’t own up to that.
“We quickly made one for the other side
to see they didn’t crash into each other, and
it worked” .
Once the clay was finished, Stevens
wanted everybody to see the car outdoors.
“Cars look different when you take them
outside. We had plans to hire trucks and an
airfield, but eventually on the August Bank
Holiday in 1991 we said, ‘Stuff it, let’s
come in at six one morning and wheel it
out into the car park next to Gordon’s
N SX ’. We were even worried about trains
going past, but nobody else saw it.
“It looked tiny, tough and aggressive and
it instantly made the NSX look like a tired,
square old motor. Gordon couldn’t believe
it. We were pumped up with excitement.
“I think they were all surprised to
discover the painstaking effort required to
get the highlights and reflections right on
the full scale model so the thing looks
gorgeous when it’s finished.”
In November 1991 the clay went off to
MGA in Coventry to be turned into the
model that was shown in Monte Carlo the
following year. The completed car arrived
back in London exactly on schedule in
late February.
“This was when Ron and Mansour could
really see how the car was going to look.
They could get into it, and just sat there
beaming. I think they wTas pretty proud o f
what they had caused to happen.”
The package of the FI b
defined by the three-seat
cabin and the length of the
BMW V12 pkis rts very
compact transverse box
According to
Stevens, "Gordon
didn't impose
anything, but he
would come by
every day and chat.
We both like similar
kinds o f cars. There
was an exhibition at
the Design Museum
o f old Alfas earlier
in the year: the
33 Stradale and
Ganguro, gorgeous
cars. ”
According to
Murray, however, he
did impose certain themes and details.
"Some items were fixed, like the air
intake on the roof. 1 knew' 1 wanted it there
for clean air and easy water separation.
That meant we were committed to a spine.
There were other details defined by the
package. The tw in radiators meant a high
nose and 1 wanted a lobster-claw look like
the early Brabhams. I also told Peter that I
wanted the car to be more mechanical the
further back you got. with grilles, vents,
stacks etc. That's why. when you view the
car from the back, you can see the engine,
although not as much as I'd have liked to
because o f the size o f that silencer.”
“I’d also wanted something that was
sixties, all soft curves, but it couldn't look
retro. Neither o f us wanted a fashionable
shape that would date. The way I see it is
that Peter's skill was inventing the look o f
the F 1 in spite o f everything I imposed.”
"Gordon and I talked about w hat makes
cars look different or causes advances,”
says Stevens. “If the packaging is different
that's what sets the hard points on paper,
so when you fill in the car gets a different
feel. Sitting the driver in the centre gives a
cab-forward look for genuine reasons and
not just as a styling gimmick.
"We didn't want anything extreme or
whacky that would go out o f date quickly,
there couldn't be too many contemporary
styling cues on the car. We wanted a
classic.”
There was still the question o f the doors.
McLaren didn't want to copy the
Countach Diablo scissor style, but still
needed forward opening doors.
"What we discovered, when we did a
mock-up o f the seating buck, was that the
Lambo system was totally unsuited for this
layout because the bit o f door you step
through is right w here the com er o f the
3 0
Wind tunnel tests showed
underbody cooling
problems so Stevens built
in a small electric fan...
It helped downforce, too
A ugly duckling proves the concept works
ALBERT
CHAPTER 4
3 5
S t« two years from a first
prototype. McLaren needed
a mule to te st components
like the gearbox and brakes
so Albert (top) was bom
While designers at Woking grappled with
the package and BMW Motorsport bench-
tested the V I2, it became clear that road
miles were needed to put the suspension,
brakes and gearbox through their paces.
McLaren had two problems: the first
chassis was 24 months away, the first
engine six. The solution was a mule based
on the British Ultima kit, acquired on the
sly by Bruce McIntosh, M cLaren’s factory
manager. The only way to simulate the
torque o f the BMW was to fit a 7.5-litre
Chevy truck engine. McIntosh set about the
business o f mating the two: “He lives for
prototyping,” says Murray. McIntosh also
coined a name, Albert, after Albert Drive,
Woking, M cLaren’s home.
Albert caused a few furrowed brows: if
pictures o f it were leaked, buyers would
hardly be turned on by its awkward look.
But for Steve Randle, the car’s dynamicist,
Albert’s worth far outweighed that risk.
It had already been decided that the FI
would be a refined road car. A harsh, noisy
ride was out o f the question but so too was
the compromised wheel control that results
from road car rubber-bushed suspension.
Randle was therefore charged with creating
a stable suspension which did not incur the
NVH penalty o f a rose-jointed race set-up.
Suspension design does not begin,
though, when the chassis engineer starts to
sketch wishbones and spring/damper units.
In racing circles, the first requirement is to
arrange the car’s principal masses correctly
a discipline which Gordon Murray imposed
on the FI design from day one.
Instant steering response needs a low
polar moment o f inertia in yaw, w hich
means a w heel at each com er and the main
masses — engine, fuel, occupants — close
to the centre o f gravity. In most road cars
this is compromised by packaging limits.
but Murray was having none o f that. The
F I ’s weight distribution (42/58 front/rear)
changes by less than one per cent from a
full to empty fuel load, and even luggage is
carried close to the centre o f gravity.
Having achieved the right distribution in
plan view the same must be done in side
elevation. Starting with undesirable weight
transfer under cornering and then correcting
it with anti-roll bars is a compromise
Murray could not accept, so the distances
between the suspension roll centre and
body mass centroid had to be the same
front and rear. Since the roll centres must
be low to avoid jacking effects, this meant
the engine had to be as low as possible in
the body. Dry sump engine lubrication also
reduced engine height by valuable inches.
Only when these basics were correct
could design o f the suspension itself begin.
Adaptive damping and ride height control
were ruled out on weight grounds.
Progressive rate springing was omitted, too,
but for different reasons. Firstly, the only
way to achieve a stepless increase in spring
rate is either by using complex pushrod
linkages or costly taper-ground springs.
Secondly, too much progression can
suddenly increase weight transfer when a
wheel hits a mid-com er bump, making
handling unpredictable. What small amount
o f wheel rate progression there is in the FI
is an inherent feature o f the suspension
linkages themselves, supplemented by
carefully optimised bump rubbers.
Wheel travel front and rear was set at a
generous 90m m (3 .5in ) in bump and 80mm
(3.1 in) in rebound, and the target unladen
bounce frequencies at 86 cycles per minute
(1 .4 3 H z) at the front. 108cpm (1 .80H z) at
the rear. With the finalised car slightly over
target weight, the actual ride frequencies
have fallen slightly to 84.5 and 105cpm.
36
A 7.5-litre V8 Chevy track
engine and a chopped-up
kit car became Albert, used
to put road miles on the
Traction Products gearbox
Although these frequencies are higher
than those o f everyday road cars, they are
still low for a sports car o f this potential.
It was the wheel rates and wheel travel
which determined the downforce generated
by the underbody. Too much downforce
would simply have squashed the car on to
its bump stops, making the handling
dangerously unpredictable at high speeds.
Describing the suspension as double
wishbone sells it ludicrously short. Its
cleverness lies in how longitudinal wheel
compliance has been engineered in without
loss o f wheel control. It is this compliance
which allows the wheel to move backwards
when it hits a bump, endowing the FI with
its remarkable ride.
Murray didn’t know how much
longitudinal wheel compliance to provide.
In racing cars every effort is made to
eliminate compliance to maximise control.
So McLaren bought a Honda NSX and put
it on the electro-hydraulic measurement rig
at Anthony Best Dynamics. A Porsche
928 S and Jaguar XJ6 were also measured.
Different methods o f achieving the
required compliance are used front and rear
in the FI because the suspension pickup
points, the forces acting on the wheels and
the required geometrical constraints are
different at either end o f the car.
At the front wheels the priority was to
prevent castor w ind-off under braking,
which compromises stability. Here, where
braking and cornering forces are reacted
through the tyre contact patch, a solution
was adopted which McLaren calls Ground
Plane Shear Centre. Subframes on either
side carry the wishbones on rigid plane
bearings but are mounted to the body by
four compliant bushes, each 25 times stiffer
radially as axially. These are aligned at
tangents to circles which have the middle
o f the tyre contact patch as their centre.
The castor control o f this arrangement is
outstanding. Castor w ind-off has been
measured at 1.02 degrees per g o f braking,
whereas the NSX. 928 S and XJ6 measured
2.91, 3 .60 and 4 .30 deg/g. Toe change
under braking and camber change under
lateral force are also very small.
At the rear, where cornering and braking
forces are again reacted through the contact
patch but tractive forces through the wheel
hub, a different configuration is used, called
Inclined Shear Axis. Complicated by the
lower wishbone mounting on the gearbox,
which is itself compliantly attached to the
body7, the suspension and engine mounts
were designed as an integrated system.
Wheel control is again exceptional, the
priority this time being to control toe
changes under braking and traction.
Measured values are 0 .04 deg/g toe-in
under braking, 0.08 deg/g toe-out under
traction, both o f which are negligible.
Equivalent figures for the 928 S were
0 .30 and 0.35 deg/g, both toe-in.
Otherwise the steering and suspension
broadly conforms with road car practice.
The castor angle and king pin inclination,
for example, are both relatively low at 4.6
and 8 degrees. However, the ground level
offset (the distance between the centre-line
o f the tyre and where the steering axis
meets the ground) is 25mm , compared with
the sub-10mm values typical today.
Aside from longitudinal wheel compliance,
one o f the critical determinants o f a car’s
ride quality and its ability to maintain
consistent tyre contact on bumpy roads is
the ratio o f its sprung to unsprung masses.
In a light car it is therefore essential to
have light suspension — easier said than
done in a vehicle which needs tyres and a
braking system commensurate with a top
speed o f over 230m ph.
Everywhere that unsprung weight could
be saved, it was. The tyres — 235/45Z R 17
front and 315/45Z R 17 rear, developed
specially for the car by Goodyear and
Michelin — were kept as small as possible,
consistent with the tractive, braking and
cornering grip demanded o f them, and then
subject to strict w eight targets. Likewise
the 17x9in and 17x 11,5in cast magnesium
wheels, finished in a tough protective p a in t
Items such as the steering knuckles are
specially manufactured because readily
available alternatives were simply not light
enough. The top wishbone/bell crank,
which converts vertical motion o f the front
wheels into horizontal motion at the
Murray pushed hard to
develop carbon-fibre brakes
but, despite light weight,
they couldn’t reach working
temperature and lacked feel
3 7
transversely disposed spring/damper units,
is cast in aluminium alloy, while the lower
front wishbone and both rear wishbones are
(like the front subframe) machined from
solid aluminium alloy on CNC machines.
Although it may sound like an indulgence,
manufacturing the wishbones this way was
cheaper than forging them.
Despite this concerted effort to keep
down the unsprung mass, the final figures
are, inevitably, still relatively high for an
1100kg car: 921b (42kg) per comer at the
front and 1211b (55kg) per comer at the
rear, equivalent to sprung to unspmng mass
ratios of 5.5:1 and 5.8:1. The equivalent
ratios for a representative hatchback
(Peugeot 306 1.8 XT) are 9.8:1 and 7.3:1.
This careful engineering of generous
longitudinal compliance into the F I’s
suspension is intended to play a big part in
determining the quality o f the ride and
whether or not it can retain its composure
over broken surfaces.
Brake system development for the FI
was entrusted to the Italian company
Brembo, well known for its motor racing
expertise. But. o f course, the design brief
from Gordon Murray was explicit.
In order to maximise brake pedal feel, he
insisted that the brakes be unservoed. This
ruled out anti-lock, which in any case
would have added unwelcome weight and
complication.
To achieve acceptable pedal effort
demanded long moment arms at the wheels,
so the ventilated discs are of large diameter
— 332mm at the front and 305mm at the
rear. Cross-drilling o f the rotors provides
improved pedal feel and helps clean the
pad feces.
Even with the discs and carefully created
brake cooling, though, developing a friction
material capable o f hauling the car dowii
from 200mph-plus speeds without fade,
while still providing sufficient bite when
cold, proved a considerable design
challenge.
Front and rear brake calipers are all
four-pot, opposed piston types as favoured
in racing circles, not the floating calipers
more typically used on modem road cars.
Naturally, they are constructed of
aluminium alloy to save weight. Because of
their racing origins the rear calipers have
no handbrake facility, so a mechanically
actuated, fist-type caliper is added.
Gordon Murray’s insistence on
maximum brake feel dictated the use of
calipers machined from solid rather than
bolted together from two halves. Again this
is standard practice in the senior race
formulae, and for precisely the same
reason: it maximises caliper stiffness and
so minimises lost motion. Pedal travel is
still only a little over an inch.
Although the F I’s pop-up rear spoiler
was not intended to be an air brake — it is
there to prevent forw ard migration o f the
aerodynamic centre o f pressure w hen the
car pitches under braking, increasing
braking stability and allowing greater
braking force to be applied at the back
wheel — it actually raises the car’s drag
coefficient from 0.32 to 0.39. Activation of
the spoiler is controlled by brake line
pressure, with a threshold speed o f 40mph.
W hen the spoiler is raised, air pressure
is developed at its base which is exploited
to force cooling air to the rear brakes.
Ducts at either end o f the spoiler, w hich are
uncovered when it deploys, convey the
airflow down to the rear discs.
All this w as created to provide a chassis
equal to a 627bhp V12 engine. But what
could be used to test such a monster
powerplant? Enter, stage right, Edward...
3 8
Kalian specialist Brembo
designed huge brakes with
one-piece aluminium alloy
calipers. For maximum feel,
pedal travel is only an inch
-.uaAfeK
THIS AREA TO BE KEPT CLEAN AND DRY
A.WSAA.V
E D WARD
BMW ’s awesome V12 comes to McLaren’s rescue
CHAPTER 5
4 3
627bhp from 6 .1 -litres
atone would be remarkable,
but BMW's S70/2 engine b
also one of worW s most
efficient and most tractable
Such was the close understanding forged
between Gordon Murray and Paul Rosche
during their Brabham days that, once plans
from eight manufacturers (including
Honda) to build special engines had fallen
through, a link up with the BMW
Motorsport team seemed ideal.
There wasn’t much time to do it. BMW
Motorsport only began its work in March
1991, yet by Christmas of that year the first
prototype of the 6.1-litre, 60 degree V12
was on the dynamometer. Less than three
months after that — on 4 March 1992 to be
precise — the first running prototype was
delivered to Woking for fitment in Edward,
the second FI development mule.
Again based around a tweaked Ultima —
this time with the kit car company’s
knowledge — the V12 and most of its
ancillaries were positioned in Edward as
they would end up in the F I.
“It’s really BMW’s car,” said Murray at
the time. “They can get us a long way
down the road to passing the emissions test,
I which take one hell of a long time to
complete.”
Although it is the numbing 627bhp peak
power o f the engine (codenamed S70/2
within BMW) which gamers headlines, in
many ways that represents the least of the
I challenges which faced the design team.
The fact that the 550bhp originally
demanded by Murray has been exceeded by
a comfortable 14 per cent proves the point.
It was in other respects that BMW’s
considerable experience in designing road
and race engines was to prove invaluable.
Firstly, Murray set the length and weight
— 600mm block length and 250kg (to
include all ancillaries, the exhaust and
silencer). It finished up the correct length
and only slightly too heavy (by 16kg).
Secondly, this prodigious powerplant had
to be rendered thoroughly user-friendly so
it could trickle along in traffic as willingly
as it would thunder along autobahns.
It is natural to regard any powerplant
capable of delivering 627bhp and 5001b ft
of torque (about 50 per cent more than a
modem Formula One engine, incidentally)
as a thoroughbred race unit, but that’s not
so. It is instructive to compare the S70/2
with one of BMW Motorsport’s less exotic
creations, the six-cylinder engine fitted to
the M3. In most key areas — specific
output, specific torque, peak power revs,
bore/stroke ratio and compression ratio —
the two units are matched to within 8 per
cent. Only in its length and weight does the
FI unit set itself significantly apart.
This is what you would expect of an
engine which, in addition to being road-
First V12 out of the BMW
workshop went to Woking
to be fitted into Edward
then back to Germany for
emissions and road tests
C H A P T E R 5
tractable, must be moderately stressed for a
long service life and practicable
maintenance schedules. In the course of its
development the F 1 engine was put through
the same punishing 500-hour bench test as
all BMW road-going powerplants, and its
nominal service interval is 5000 miles.
Emissions performance has not been
compromised either. As in the M5 engine,
secondary air injection is used to reduce
pollutant levels during the critical warm-up
phase. Until the four catalytic converters
reach light-off— relatively quickly since
they are closer-coupled in the FI than in
the M5 — air is injected into the exhaust
manifold to bum off excess hydrocarbons
produced by cold start over-fuelling.
It is a reflection o f its short development
time that the FI engine uses, in the main,
only tried and trusted technology from
BMW’s mainstream units. The variable
valve timing, for example, is closely based
on the VANOS system used in the M3.
This simple, hydraulically-actuated phasing
mechanism retards the inlet cam relative to
the exhaust cam at lowr revs, reducing valve
overlap and ensuring good idle behaviour
and low-speed torque. Fligher up the rev
range, under the control of the engine
management computer, the valve overlap is
increased by 42 degrees (25 degrees in the
M 3) to improve engine breathing and
maximise power output.
Despite their common valvetrain
technology, though, the FI and M3 engines
are tuned for significantly different torque
characteristics. Whereas the M 3’s torque
curve has its maximum at 3600rpm and is
virtually a plateau from 3500rpm to almost
6000rpm. the F I’s displays instead the
inexorable climb o f a traditional sporting
engine, peaking at 5600rpm. only 1600rpm
below peak power output. The F 1 unit
delivers a beefy 3981b ft at 1500rpm even
so — 69 per cent greater than the M 3’s
peak output and quite sufficient to ensure
vivid performance in a car weighing around
1200kg including driver.
In fact, ensuring that the F 1 was not
over-willing on small throttle openings
posed one of the principal development
difficulties. Making the engine fuss-free in
traffic was not enough; it also had to be
sufficiently controllable not to bury the car
under the lorry in front at the merest twitch
of the pedal. Careful design, o f the throttle
linkage and TAG’s expertise in engine
management were relied upon.
Although considerable attention was paid
to the induction system (length, diameter
and surface finish of the inlet tracts, and the
volume of the plenum chamber) variable
geometry was resisted by BMW as an
unnecessary complication.
A familiar problem in high-speed racing
engines is mixture preparation. At the high
inlet air speeds encountered at high revs
there is insufficient time for the fuel to
atomise fully if the injector is placed close
to the inlet valve, as it is normally is in
road engines with multi-point injection.
Although the FI engine runs at nothing
like the 13,000rpm-plus o f state-of-the-art
racing engines like the Ford HB, BMW’s
engineers found that mixture preparation
from a single injector was not ideal across
the whole rev band, so two Lucas injectors
are used per cylinder. The first, positioned
close to the inlet valve, operates at lowr
engine speeds, while the second, positioned
further up the inlet tract, takes over at high
revs. A ‘soft’ transition between the two,
controlled by the engine management
computer, covers up the switch-over.
4 5
Mimimal flywheel effect
from the dutch was a
Murray requirement. The
aluminium clutch plate is
as thin as possible
Mixture preparation is further assisted in
the lower injector by air assistance. A
narrow jet of air, drawn into the inlet tract
by the partial vacuum created on the
induction stroke, ‘shears’ the fuel spray and
breaks it up into smaller droplets.
As you would anticipate in an engine of
this sophistication, the closed-loop fuel
injection is sequential. Fully mapped,
contactless ignition is likewise no less than
you would expect, each cylinder having its
own miniature ignition coil, just as in the
M5. Engine load is sensed by hot wire.
Combustion conditions are sufficiently
remote from knock limits that no knock
sensor is necessary.
The materials usage in this engine, like
the core technology, is also relatively
conservative, drawing again on BMW’s
own production engines. No titanium
valves or conrods here. Both the head and
block are cast in aluminium, with a Nicasil
coating to the cylinder bores providing the
necessary wear resistance. The lightweight
pistons are of forged aluminium, the con
rods and the crank of forged and twisted
steel, and the exhaust valves are sodium-
cooled. Significantly, most o f these features
can be found in the M5 powerplant.
One notable exception is the exhaust
system, a bulky and potentially heavy item
on a V12. To reduce weight the F I’s is
constructed, from the block to the silencer,
of Inconel, a particularly durable, heat
resistant grade of stainless steel which
allows the use of a thinner pipe gauge
(0.8mm). Further weight saving is achieved
by making the large, 65-litre silencer of
titanium and having it double up as a crush
member for rear impacts.
A race engine feature which Murray did
insist on for the FI was minimal flywheel
effect. What the clutch mounts to is an
aluminium plate no larger or thicker than
necessary to transmit the engine’s torque,
and which has minimal rotational inertia.
This should allow the V 12 exceptionally
throttle responsive and rapid rev shedding
on lift-off, permitting the fastest possible
gear changes. Of course, this is only
feasible in an engine without secondary
couples (hence the pure 60-degree vee
angle) and which is carefully balanced,
otherwise the level of engine vibration
would be unacceptable. BMW has also
fitted a torsional vibration damper.
A second race car feature, found on very
few road cars, is dry sump lubrication.
Although more complex and costly than a
conventional wet sump, it shaves vital
inches from the height of the oil pan and so
allows the engine to be mounted lower.
Variable geometry was
rejected as too complicated
but much time was spent
perfecting the elements of
the induction system
BMW utilised much of its
tried and tested technology
for the F I’s V12 but called
on race-style dual injectors
to improve fuel mixture
4 6
First prototype born at Christmas, destroyed by Easter
XP1CHAPTER 6
5 1
High spirits at Xmas 1992
were dashed when the first
car was destroyed three
months later in a massive
testing accident in Africa
The message on the Christmas card was
simple: “The first McLaren FI will run on
23rd December.” Bang on schedule, there
was a new star in the firmament — XP1,
experimental prototype 1.
The job of building the first monocoque
had been made easier with the timely
acquisition, off-the-shelf, of one of
Britain’s most advanced composite
facilities. At Shalford, just 20 miles from
Albert Drive, and empty for six months
was GTO, Ferrari’s Guildford Technical
Office built at the request of Formula 1
designer John Barnard during his first
sojourn with the Italian team and redundant
since the Englishman’s defection to the
Benetton team. It had ovens the size of
houses and was going for a song.
X P l’s monocoque took 6000 hours to
build, and was delivered to Albert Drive at
the start of December. “The guys thought
they’d escaped from all-nighters when they
left Formula 1...” said Murray at the time.
Come lunchtime on the 23rd there were
some very draw n faces in the workshop,
not least Murray who had a plane to catch
back home to South Africa at 3.00pm and
had promised himself a drive in the car
before he left.
After a couple of false starts in the
workshop, the BMW burst into life just
after 1.30pm and with Murray at the wheel
drove two laps around the car park. There
were niggles, sure, but there was a palpable
sense o f relief that all the systems w orked,
including and especially, the gearbox.
Murray admits to having been at a loss
as to how to configure the F I’s six-speed
transmission. He studied every longitudinal
and transverse engine layout used in other
mid-engined cars and rejected all of them
on the basis of weight, frictional losses,
poor packaging or — in the case of the
engine-over-gearbox layout used by Ferrari
in the Berlinetta Boxer — the high centre
of gravity.
Determined, for reasons o f good
handling, to achieve the lowest possible
polar moment of inertia in yaw, he had
decided on using the Formula 1 solution
instead: placing the engine as far forward
within the wheelbase as possible, with a
transaxle behind. But however he drew it,
the resulting assembly was too long. As
the block length of the V I2 was already
pared to the bone at 600mm, the space
saving simply had to come from the
transaxle. But how?
It was Patrick Weismann — son of Pete
Weismann, founder of Traction Products
and another old associate from Murray’s
Brabham days (the two first worked
together on an Indycar project in 1971) —
who came up with the solution. Like all the
best ideas it was ludicrously simple: a
transverse gearbox which allowed the
crown wheel o f the differential to be
positioned beside the clutch rather than
behind it. thereby saving vital inches.
The F I’s transverse ‘box has six forward
speeds, o f which the first five form a
classic close-ratio set for speeds up to
180mph. Sixth is an overdrive, pulling a
high 30mph per lOOOrpm to permit an
ultimate top speed of over 230mph. A
lock-out reverse obviates the possibility of
any nasty mishap when negotiating the
four-plane gate.
The carbon carbon clutch had been
thoroughly tested in Albert and Edward,
and unlike the carbon brakes, had passed
the test. Murray was determined to make
the FI a thoroughly user-friendly road car
and that ruled out the thigh-straining clutch
5 2
After the excitement (and
a*ooety) of the first run
(right) McLaren quickly
started testing with Palmer
A puff of smoke and the
first McLaren FI hursts
into life (top), Murray at
the wheel, 2 3 December 92
effort typical o f powerful mid-engined
supercars, while the elimination of all
unnecessary addenda on weight grounds
and an emphasis on preserving control feel
banished any thought o f servo assistance.
Considerable time and effort was expended
on refining the clutch’s hydraulic actuation.
Another idea o f Pete Weismann’s — a cam
system o f operating the clutch mechanism
— was also incorporated as a simple
method o f providing adjustability o f clutch
action during development.
It w'asn’t until XP1 was run in anger at
the Silverstone circuit w ith Murray, Ron
Dennis and Creighton Brown at the wheel
that the gearbox niggles took on a
consistent pattern. The FI, even with three
on board recorded some spectacular times
and would regularly hit 170mph plus on the
Hanger Straight, but testing was being
interrupted by a gearbox oil overheating
problem caused by its proximity to the
catalytic converters, but easily solved with
the addition of an oil cooler w ith its own
air scoop just behind the engine air intake.
With production sign-off looming McLaren
took advantage of its grand prix alliances
and brought in FF Developments as
consultants. The production boxes are now
manufactured at FFD.
The project, however, hit big problems in
March. BMW had taken XP1 hot-weather
testing to Namibia to complete the first
stage o f the long-winded engine mapping
process. On 22 March, with a BMW
engineer at the wheel and the car loaded
with test-equipment, XP1 began a series of
tests the wrong side o f 150mph. There had
been slight problems with overheating and
part of the rear bodywork had been
removed for the final run of the day over
the same section of straight road.
Out o f sight of the other engineers —
nobody know s for sure what happened next
— the driver lost control, hit a sun-dried,
rock-solid mud bank and the car went into
a lurid series o f rolls before coming to a
rest and catching fire. XP1. the first
McLaren road car, was totally destroyed.
The driver, wearing just shorts and T-shirt,
stepped out completely unharmed —a more
powerful vindication of the safety of the
F I’s monocoque design is, frankly,
unimaginable.
XP2 was finished shortly after X P l’s
accident and became BMW’s test vehicle,
before returning to Britain for DTp crash
testing at MIRA where it made history.
As far as anyone knows, it’s the only car to
have survived the test; after hitting the wall
it could have been driven back from MIRA.
Three more prototypes were built, each a
little closer to the final production spec,
each a little closer to production quality.
Each a little heavier.
From the very beginning McLaren’s
target was a staggering 1000kg (22001b).
The sheer audacity of this goal is only put
into its true perspective when you realise a
rear-wheel drive Lamborghini Diablo
w eighs 1575kg, Jaguar’s XJ220 tops the
scales at 1470kg. Ferrari’s F40 1235kg and
Bugatti’s 4wd EB110 at 1620kg.
What few people realised immediately,
however, was that Gordon Murray was
talking in terms of dry' weight. Add 65kg
for 85 litres of fuel and another, say, 35kg
for lubricants, radiator water — even
windscreen washer water adds another
few kg — so, in terms o f kerb weight,
we’re talking 1100kg. Nevertheless it
remains a remarkable achievement.
“I set the target o f 1000kg when the
engine was going to be 4.5-litres,” says
Part sales drive, part test,
McLaren took XP5 to the
Far East where Palmer ran
into the Hong Kong law...
2 2 March 1 9 9 3 . Namibia:
th e photograph was taken
not long before XP1 was
completely destroyed
At a two-day Nurburgring
test: Ron Dennis (left),
Murray and BMW’s Paul
Rosche with XP5
The grand prix team helped
out on the FI project wrth
the loan of its pit garages
— and Mika Hakkmen
Murray. “From the beginning 1 knew it was
virtually impossible to achieve if we
included sound proofing, air conditioning,
the luggage and sound system. But 1
decided not to make it 1100kg, so it was
really difficult and everybody knew I was
going to be looking at every nut and bolt.
That’s the way you do it on a Formula 1
car. 1 wanted them to understand that was
to be our philosophy.”
Inevitably, though, the weight crept up.
“We tried carbon fibre brakes on Albert for
three months. We couldn’t get them to
work in wet, cool conditions so we
switched to iron brakes and gained 18kg.
My own realistic target for the car then
became 1080kg.”
The first one to go on the scales was
XP1 which, admittedly, lacked sound
proofing, had parts missing and wasn’t
painted. It came in at 1003kg. When the
engine jumped from 4.5-litres to 6.1-litres
the gearbox needed strengthening,
increasing weight by another 20kg.
It was about then that Paul Rosche told
Murray he wanted to fit variable valve
timing to the engine.
“I know the car is to weigh 1000kg and
I know it’s got enough torque to move a
block of flats,” said Rosche, “but if you
w ant the pinnacle of modem technology,
you should have it.”
“I asked him how' much more the engine
would weigh.” explains Murray, who
admits to being against the idea. “The
answ er w as 9ke. so I told him if he could
meet the original weight target with the
variable valve timing we’d have it.
And he did.”
XP4 weighed 1067kg painted, with
sound proofing, but without the liquids.
Today Gordon concedes that the production
FI will weigh around 1100kg dry, say a
1200kg kerb weight. Like we said, by the
standards of every other supercar it’s an
astonishing achievement.
There were thousands of detail changes.
At least five different nose undertrays were
tried, some with and some w ithout the spot
lamps that gave the studio model its
distinctive wide-mouth look. The rear view
mirrors and turn indicators, originally
mounted at the top of the door frames,
were declared illegal and Murray traded
them for a four point harness with the
type-approval boffins at the DTp.
That meant new wing mirrors and Peter
Stevens went, originally, for what he knew
best; the Citroen CX 'supercar’ units he’d
used on the Lotus Esprit Mkll and Jaguar
XJR-15 (and subsequently taken up by
others on the Aston Vantage and XJ220).
The production car now' has mirrors from
another source, but Stevens isn’t saying
from where. The front turn indicators, from
the Lotus Elan, w ere also relocated to
below the headlamps.
The changes had a dramatic impact on
the car’s drag, which dropped from 0.34 to
0.32. This, in turn, w as one of the reasons
why Jonathan Palmer hit the rev limiter
during the 231mph run at Nardo. one of the
circuits used by the McLaren Cars team for
testing. In Britain the four surviving
prototypes could be seen testing alongside
grand prix cars at Silverstone (and they
never looked slow !), and at Goodwood.
Chobham. MIRA and regularly on the
two-mile strip at Bruntingthorpe.
On the continent. McLaren used BMW’s
own test track, Nardo, Goodyear's Miravel
track in the South of France and. of course,
the biggest challenge o f the lo t the
14-mile Nurburgring.
54
C H A P T E R 7
Production starts, with a little help from Ferrari
THE ROAD TO
001The keys to production:
in November 1991 McLaren
acquired GTO from Ferrari
and late last year Derek
Waetend joined from Lotus
CHAPTER 7
5 9
C H A P T E R 7
Chassis 001, reserved for
McLaren, waits at Woking
for its engine and doors. FI
is assembled using doors-
off mass-production methods
Most people believe it’s the McLaren F I ’s style, speed, design and technology which makes it the world’s most exotic sports car, but Derek Waelend, manufacturing director at McLaren Cars and the man responsible for building the FI right, begs to differ.
The car’s stunning shape and enormous road ability attract potential buyers in the first place, he says, but it is engineering excellence, quality finish and fanatical attention to detail w hich finally convince them that a McLaren FI is worth their very large investment.
“Our owners are very special people,” Waelend says. “They’re successful, they’re smart, they know cars and there’s no pulling the wool over their eyes. They know quality when they see it, and they know you can’t just bolt it on. For a lot o f them, coming to McLaren is like coming home, because Gordon Murray is fanatical about getting the thing right to the last detail, and so am I.”
Waelend came to McLaren about 10 months ago, via Ford. Jaguar. Lotus and GEC, having built a high reputation as a man w ho could get things done. At Woking he w as charged with the task of getting the first FI to a private owner on time, then raising production to its planned three-a-month level by next August — while maintaining quality7 and consistency at the expected level, a far higher rate than anything previously seen in the exotic car business.
Whereas improvements over the past decade have seen quality mass production cars (Mercedes. BMW, Lexus) push well past existing labour-intensive or hand-built cars, W aelend's job is to set
standards the others can only dream about.Waeland’s concept o f quality starts with
the layout o f the spotless, highly ordered and brilliantly lit Woking assembly operation itself. The concept, he explains, is that this very special car is made in the atmosphere o f an office, not a conventional workshop. There’s no dirt, no debris, no pools o f oil on the floor. There aren’t even any dirty overalls.
The production director looks anything but complacent as he stands and views production car 002, about to be delivered to the F I ’s first customer (001 being McLaren’s own FI). “We made over 1000 detail changes to the early production cars, compared with the last prototype, XP5. W e’ve made an all-out effort to deal with things which turn into ‘niggles’ when the car’s been in service for a while. Look at th is...” And he begins a tour o f the car’s inner workings calculated to send ‘details' junkies right into orbit.
The gold-coloured spanners, nestling in their elegant leather tool kit, are beautifully wrought in titanium (because it’s 50 per cent lighter than steel). The fusebox includes not only spares, but a fuse tester the size o f a matchbox. Every hose connection on the engine has a high-tech ‘dry break’ seal called a Wiggins coupling. The bespoke Kenwood CD player weighs less than half what they normally do. The box spanner for the car’s central wheel nuts looks like a piece o f sculpture, machined from solid. So is the amazingly light screw- in towing eye, snug in a little housing under the bootlid. Inside the car, every trim line and upholstery seam runs straighter than an arrow. The small carbon aerofoil on the windscreen wiper not only looks great, it's also been tested beyond 200mph. Every door hinge is rose-jointed. Waelend could go on. He has the gift o f the gab.
O f course, there’s much more to the FI than eye-catching detail, the manufacturing director points out. The car is as tough as anything on the road, and a damn sight tougher than other exotic cars. The prototype used for the F I ’s recent crash test survived so well that it has been repaired and sent o ff for further duties. The chassis now “awaits another allocation". Another prototype survived four times the usual pave test inflicted on production saloons, with no problem but the failure o f a couple o f electrical connections.
Rust prevention has become such a fetish at W oking that McLaren buys the finest, aircraft-quality nuts and bolts on the
6 0
C H A P T E R 7
market, then re-treats every one o f them. The F I, which will sell to customers in humid countries like South-East Asia, has also surv ived 1600 hours o f salt spray testing at MIRA — four times the normal test and the equivalent o f 25 years o f life under ordinary conditions.
“It is my earnest hope,” says Waelend, “that no FI will ever show' the slightest sign o f rust. W e’ve taken precautions with every part, every nut, bolt and washer. We want to be sure that this car, which is a work o f art, remains a work o f art for many, many years.”
This lyrical turn o f phrase, combined with a high rate o f words per second, makes Derek Waelend a very unusual person in the car business, a manufacturing type who also has PR skills and an optimistic outlook which inspires his troops. The passion is obvious for anyone to see, and those w ho have worked with him in the past say he’s never been any different. In his 30s at Ford. Waelend ran the Valencia plant, which made 1152 Fiestas a day, a body every 42sec. At the time, he proudly claims, it had the best reputation for quality and efficiency o f any plant in the world empire.
Now in his early 50s and presiding over an operation that will never quite reach 40 cars a year, he still shows endless raw enthusiasm, an excellent grasp o f the cutting edge style o f technology McLaren favours, and a longer list o f supplier contacts than anyone else at Woking.
When he came to McLaren Cars last May, Waelend says he was struck by tw o things: the amount that had been achieved getting the first prototype built by Christmas Eve 1992. and the amount which had to be done to get the first customer car finished by Christmas Eve 1993. If he had worries and doubts, they were caused chiefly by the relatively poor paint finish on the FI prototypes — and on various other vehicles w'ith carbon-fibre bodies w hich he swiftly set o ff to view'.
"I looked at loads o f them.” he says, “Ferrari F40s. the Alfa Procar. the Jaguar XJR-15 plus various racing cars and some aircraft, too. None were very good, and some were absolutely terrible.” But at the same time. Waelend says, the Jaguar XJ220’s was the best finish he’d ever seen on a car. He decided to make that his minimum standard for the McLaren FI.
Originally. McLaren Cars had toyed with the idea o f doing its own painting but Waelend. who had set up a plant for Lotus
not many years before, suggested they forget the idea for two reasons. Latest EC clean-air legislation makes new' paint plants prohibitively expensive to build, and carbon-fibre bodies really do need specialist attention. It was better to find a firm of established experts, he insisted. Eventually he settled on QCR, in Nuneaton, as the people to do the job, and he hasn’t been the least bit disappointed by their results.
Next was a source o f finest quality bespoke upholstery, since owners were to be offered literally any colour/texture combination they cared to dream up. After a hunt, Waelend found himself one Saturday on the doorstep o f a small Coventry trim shop called Anderson & Ryan. Pleasant surprises w ere w aiting inside.
“The ‘Anderson’ turned out to be Dave Anderson, whose father had been my trim shop superintendent at Jaguar,” Waelend explains. “The ‘Ryan’ was Kevin Ryan, who I’d also known at Jaguar as someone who could take the designers’ leather and trim concepts o ff the drawing board and realise them in three dimensions. They were doing some great work, not only doing specialist interiors for cars but also trimming business jets. We knew' right aw ay that we could do some business together. Gordon's pleased, because his and Peter Stevens’ ideas are now being realised properly inside the car.”
Though he won his spurs in mass production. Derek Waelend is now a devotee o f modem flexible manufacturing techniques which, he says, can raise the quality' o f the w orld’s best-built low volume car to Swiss-watch level. He talks enthusiastically about CNC (Computer
6 1
Only when the car is
nearing completion will its
doors be put in place, so
chassis 003 (above) will
soon be with its new owner
Composite bodies are
cured in the autoclave at
Shalford, the former site
of Ferrari’s Formula 1
technical centre
Numerical Control) machines, which allow components to be machined, drilled, punched, bent or cut to very exacting tolerances, without the need for delays, waste or huge production runs.
Best o f all, he says, is the flexibility. If you want to modify a part, you merely change the program, and the very next item you make conforms to the new design. For mass manufacturers, tooling costs run into millions, and making small modifications to components is hardly ever on the agenda.
McLaren Cars couldn’t be anywhere near the centre o f excellence it is. says the manufacturing director, without the remarkable abilities o f its highly skilled technicians, most o f w hom have either a grand prix or an aerospace background “One o f the first things 1 learned was that we hardly ever have parts shortages." says Waelend. wonderingly. "If a component doesn't turn up from a supplier, the boys will make it. And I'm not talking about jury-rigged stuff, either. They'll machine it from solid, send it o ff to be anodised and have it on the car by the time you've registered there's a problem."
In one way. W aelend's a slightly odd fish at a place like McLaren. H e's a genuine, old-fashioned, motor industry live wire in a works full o f highly intelligent, self-contained, hard to impress and rather languid technical experts. They aren't like him. but they appreciate his contribution. " I f you're working late and life's a bit hard." says one regular. "Derek tends to make life a bit more entertaining"
Actually. Waelend admits his tendency to act "a bit O T T ' has ruffled a few feathers in the past. He made his discontent
evident at Jaguar, for instance, w hen they announced a decision to spend £54 million on “a crystal palace for engineers” (the Whitley research centre) while his people had to labour on with an antiquated assembly line inherited in the ’60s from Standard Triumph. The injustice, he says, was a factor in his decision to move on.
"1 think 1 might be a difficult person to manage sometimes,” he says, “because I’m headstrong and a bit more forceful than some people appreciate. But I try to act with the interests o f the company and the customer in mind.”
Waelend sees no bar to a long working life at McLaren. He loves the place, and is enthusiastic about the skills both Ron Dennis and Gordon Murray have for alotting priorities. He is also very proud o f what his team has achieved, getting the early cars to the paying customers.
“ It’s no secret,” he says, “that most projects founder in the phase between prototype build and production start-up. There comes a point w here you have to start ordering parts in batches, and the huge financial commitment, coming on top o f the start-up costs, can shake the steadiest nerv e. But w e’re past that now. We always said w e’d have the first car production car ready for delivery on 24 December 1993. and we achieved it.As a matter o f fact, we finished it at about lunchtime on the last day.” As this is written in mid-February the first customer (whose identity is a close-kept secret) has taken delivery o f his car, and the first seven chassis are in various states o f build.
Though Waelend admits it’s probably a harder exercise to build the first production car than any other, he believes the challenges for his manufacturing team are just beginning. “W e’ve got a car now. but at present it takes 3500 hours to make a body at our Shalford works [formerly Ferrari's grand prix technical office] and a further 2500 hours to assemble it here at Woking. I have a target to get that down to 3000 hours for the body and 750 hours for the assembly. And by August w e've got to be building three cars a month. Those are tough targets but w e’ll meet them. No argument about i t ”
FI owners can specify any
upholstery they want.
Anderson & Ryan ensures
that all demands are met.
to the highest standards
62
C H A P T E R 8
Setting the 3 5 0 F Is began
with the 1 9 9 2 launch in
Monaco (top). Customer
totfce programme ever since
You get more than an F 1 for your £540,000
SELLINGTHE DREAM
CHAPTER 8
Me LA R E N ' S R O A D C A R
Dennis (top) showed off the
FI at the Monaco launch in
May 1 9 9 2 , and 10 people
stumped up the £ 1 0 6 ,0 0 0
deposit on first sight
C H A P T E R 8
concerning emissions, speed limits and fuel
consumption also reduces the likelihood of
a rival bettering the FI.
His second justification for charging over
half a million pounds for what remains,
after all, a mere car is this: “Consider the
technology needed to build a car with a
6.1-litre V12 engine, room for three people
in fully trimmed, air-conditioned comfort,
their luggage and then put that car into
production weighing just 1100kg.”
Consider also that, at the moment, an FI
takes around 6000 highly-skilled
man-hours to build. From start to finish, the
process takes around 3.5 months per car;
broadly speaking, the average large luxury
saloon selling for around £40,000 takes
comfortably under two days to build.
Palmer can be confident buyers will get
more than just the keys and a cursory point
in the direction of the handbook.
Even before there’s money on the table
customers will spend time with Murray,
and with Palmer and Creighton Brown to
give them a feel for the philosophy behind
the car, and to let them get a foot in the
door to what Murray calls the “FI Club.”
Once they’ve placed an order they’ll be
encouraged to visit Shalford and Woking to
see, and maybe help with, the car being
built. They’ll be given guidance on colour
and trim since Murray is anxious the
interior, especially, doesn’t lose its
single-seater feel. Any colour is possible:
the MGA model has been painted yellow
for a customer to take a look while Derek
Waelend spent a weekend buying
aubergines to match a requested colour.
Closer to production, customers will
have the driver’s seat
professionally fitted
and, under the
supervision of
Palmer, have the
pedals and steering
wheel adjusted.
(Discreetly, McLaren
will also find out the
buyers favoured
music so when they
turn on the bespoke
Kenw'ood CD their
top tune will fill
the cabin).
All the cars will
come equipped with
colour-matched
luggage (including a
golf bag), a Facom
tool chest, a car
Building the fastest
road car the world
has ever seen is one
thing. Selling it to a
public, many of
whom still have
bandaged fingers
from financial forays
with other 200mph
supercars, is quite
another. In charge of
this daunting task is
Jonathan Palmer
who, in addition to
his role of chief test
driver for the FI, is
now McLaren’s
director of sales and
marketing.
There will always
be a market for a car which is the best in its
field, but Palmer is under no illusions
whatsoever about the scale of the job he
faces. “We have no right to expect people
to understand why a car could possibly be
worth £540,000 and convincing them that
the FI is creates one o f the toughest
challenges we face.”
Palmer is as far removed from the shiny-
suited, patter-spattering salesman you’ll
find in your local dealer as you could
imagine. He speaks with utter conviction,
not just as a man who knows every detail
of the FI but, crucially, believes totally in
the car. The knowledge that it was
conceived by Gordon Murray’s brain and
styled by Peter Stevens’s pen can be pretty
persuasive and, for some, the fact that it’s
made by the world’s most successful
Formula 1 constructor will be enough to
clinch the deal. For some.
Others will be less easily convinced and
will require hard evidence that this car is,
unequivocally, the fastest and plain best
supercar that has ever been. Simple figures
should do much of that work for McLaren
and Autocar £ Motor's forthcoming road
test of the car will provide concrete,
independent evidence of the car’s
capabilities as will the numerous speed
records McLaren intends to capture round
the world in the next year.
But before that even, the evidence
already supports the contention that the FI
will prove to be the fastest road car the
world will ever see. Ferrari, hitherto never
a marque to be outperformed by anyone,
admits its successor for the F40 will not
approach the performance of the FI.
Palmer also believes that future legislation
Stevens explaining the
design is a great marketing
tool (below), fuelled by
interest from stars such as
George Harrison (bottom)
cover and a battery charger. There’ll also
be a leather-bound book of the car.
BMW dealers equipped to handle any
M-cars will be able to routinely service an
FI, but in the event of an emergency and
the built-in. modem-link to Woking not
working. McLaren will have a mechanic on
the next flight. Palmer will be available to
offer driver advice and. where necessary,
arrange circuit time to allow customers to
get more out o f their cars.
About one third o f the FIs will be walled
up in museums and garages but the vast
majority will be used on the open road, a
thought which clearly pleases Palmer.
Speculators, says Palmer, have yet to raise
their heads back abov e the parapet to which
they retired, shirtless. from the crash of ’89.
There is no escaping that the heady days
of the late eighties are gone. Back then,
waiting lists for certain cars stretched to the
thick end of a decade. The closest we had
to this McLaren was the Ferrari F40, a car
which you could not buy if Mr Ferrari did
not consider you a suitable customer. It was
a rare privilege even to be offered one.
Now the truth is, though McLaren
contacts those it thinks will be interested in
the FI, it’s not in the business o f turning
anyone away. Indeed, order your FI today,
pay a 20 per cent deposit and, with another
30 per cent due eight months before
delivery, you can expect to pay the balance
and pick up the keys early next summer.
Still, the list is getting longer and if this
trend continues. 300 FIs will be built
between now and the turn o f the century.
And there, says McLaren, it will stop.
69
Cm it reatty be worth
£ 5 4 0 ,0 0 0 , twice as much
as a Bugatti? If s the job of
Jonathan Palmer's team to
convince 3 0 0 people it is
The vital statistics o f a McLaren F 1
THE POWER&
THE GLORY
CHAPTER 9
72
C H A P T E R l>
Floor-mounted foot pedals are CNC milled from solid; plaque details McLaren’s record ia Formula 1 — wit* space left for updates; super lightweight Facom spanners made from titanium
ENGINEType numberLayoutCapacityMaximum powerMaximum torqueMaximum engine speedSpecific outputPower to weight ratioInstallationConstruction
Bore/Stroke Compression ratio Valves
S70/212 cylinders in 60deg Vee 6064cc627bhp/7400rpmOver 4791b ft from 4000-7000rpm7500rpm103bhp/litre550bhp/tonneLongitudinal, mid-mount, rear-drive Aluminium heads and block, magnesium cam carriers 86/87mm 10.5:14 per cylinder, dohc, continuous variable inlet valve timing
CLUTCHAP triple-plate, carbon, 200mm diameter, hydraulic actuation Aluminium flywheel 200mm diameter
SUSPENSIONFront
Rear
Double unequal length wishbones. Ground Plane Shear Centre subframes, alloy dampers, co-axial springs, anti-roll bar
Double unequal length wishbones, Inclined Axis Shear mounting system, alloy dampers, co-axial springs, toe in/toe out control links
73
EXTERIOR DIMENSIONSLengthWidthHeightWheelbaseFront trackRear trackGround clearance
4288mm 1820mm 1140mm 2718mm 1568mm 1472mm 130mm
IgnitionFuelling
Emissions equipment
Lubrication system Exhaust system
Transistorised, 1 coil per cylinder Electronic fuel injection,12 throttle valves Four catalytic converters with Lamda sensors, secondary air injectionDry sump, magnesium casting Inconel pipes and four catalysts, titanium silencer
TRANSMISSIONTransverse, 6-speed manual gearbox
Ratio/mph per lOOOrpm1st 3.23/8.72nd 2.19/12.73rd 1.71/16.74th 1.39/20.05th 1.16/24.06th 0.93/30.0Final drive ratio 2.37:1Limited slip differential standard, 40 per cent lock up
INTERIOR DIMENSIONS CabinDriver leg room Driver head room Passenger leg room Passenger head room Cabin width
Luggage compartmentsLengthWidthHeightCapacity
1227mm 985mm 1174mm 973mm 1360mm
540mm 450mm 500mm 0.28cu m
STEERING
Type
Lock to lock
Turning circle
Unassisted rack and pinion
2.8 turns
13m
FUEL SYSTEM
Flexible safety fuel cell with in-tank high pressure pump
Fuel grade 95-98RON unleaded
Fuel tank capacity 90 litres (19.8 gallons)
Oil tank capacity 6 litres (1.3 gallons)
Recommended oil Shell Helix UltraBRAKES
Automatic, computer controlled brake cooling and balance aerofoil
Front 332mm x 32mm ventilated discs,
four piston monobloc light alloy
calipers
Rear 305mm x 26mm ventilated discs,
four piston monobloc light alloy
calipers
Anti-lock unavailable
WEIGHT
Dry weight 1100kg (24201b)
Kerb weight 1140kg (25081b)
Weight distribution % f/r 41.2/58.8
Maximum payload 350kg (7701b)
EQUIPMENT
Air conditioning
Kenwood CD stereo system
Electric mirrors
Electric windows
Electric windscreen demist and defrost
Remote central locking
Map reading lights
Remote luggage compartment release
Facom titanium tool kit
Individual tailoring o f seat, pedals and instruments for owner
Leather-bound, hand-made McLaren FI book
Document case
Map pocket
Magnesium alloy wheels
Metallic paint
External battery charger
Garage tool kit
Car cleaning kit
Car cover
Com nlete hie^ape spr incliiHino p n lf hao
PRICE
List price £540,000
76
WHEELS
Size
Construction
17x9in (front), 17x11.5in (rear)
cast magnesium with centre lock
Goodyear FI
235/45ZR17 (front),
315/45ZR 17 (rear)
TYRES
Type
Size
BODY
Full carbon-fibre advanced composite monocoque and body.
Carbon safety cell for occupants and carbon front crash structure,
including small amount o f Dyneema
AERODYNAMICS
Fan assisted full underbody aerodynamics, driver selectable high-
down force mode, automatic brake and balance adjustment aerofoil
Drag coefficient
Frontal area
CDA
0.32
1.79m1
0.57
Fscorn also makes complete garage tool kit (part is shown) for every car; anodised aluminium alloy tow-hook screws into bumper; six-speed gearhox console has starter button under flap
C H A P T E R 9 I
C H A P T E R 9
Conventional wishbones are attached in-board on the subframe; Inconet stainless steel manifolds exit through four catalysts; vast amount of luggage fits perfectly, golf bag on front seat
77
Upright hub carriers form part of Inclined Axis Shear mounting system; EC unit (above and right) one of the many on the FI developed by specialist TAG Electronics, a McLaren offshoot
80
C H A P T E R 9
CHRONOLOGY — McLAREN CARS LTD
19881 March
11 September
198917 March
13 April
199023 February
12 March
30 March
4 April
2 July
13 August
15 September
15 November
199115 February
14 April
29 November
19924 March
6 April
8 May
28 May
23 December
199317 March
24 March
28 May
1 August
8 August
199425 January'
Gordon Murray opens file on
possible project
McLaren loses Italian Grand Prix,
Murray, Dennis, Brown, Ojjeh talk
McLaren Cars Ltd announced in Rio x p i
Albert Drive premises acquired
Name of ‘F I ’ chosen
Original 10-hour concept meeting
Seating buck finished
Tea lady starts
First wind tunnel test
Ultima kit for Albert arrives in
Woking
Murray/Stevens visit Bugatti
Presentation to BMW
Studio model
XP2
XP3
BMW V12 and FI name announced
Albert runs for first time xp4
McLaren Cars acquire GTO in
Guildford
First engine arrives at Albert Drive
MGA model finished, shown to team xps
and board
Edward finished
McLaren FI launched at Sporting
Club in Monaco
XPI completed, first run 001
XPI arrives in Namibia
XP2 finished
XP2 runs at 190mph for first time „
Mika Hakkinen tops 220mph in XP4
Jonathan Palmer hits 231mph
at Nardo
First customer car, 002, delivered 003
CHASSISOGRAPHY — THE CARS BUILT SO FAR
Studio Model Build by MGA Developments in
Coventry, the model was shown at the Monaco launch
in May 1992 and at subsequent motor shows. Featured
roof-mounted mirrors/tum indicators and spot lamps in
the air intakes. Originally finished in bright silver
( ‘Magnesium’), it’s since been painted red, blue and is
currently yellow.
XPI Completed 23 December 1992. The first
experimental prototype. Crashed and destroyed in
testing in Namibia. Unpainted.
XP2 Completed 24 March 1993. Originally BMW’s car
for type approval. Returned to McLaren in November
for crash testing at MIRA. Unpainted.
XP3 Completed 30 April 1993. McLaren’s first
development cycle car. Did much of the durability
testing including the 231mph run at Nardo. Now on
gearbox development validation. Finished in bright
silver ‘Magnesium’.
XP4 Completed 23 July 1993. Second development
cycle car. Responsible for the bulk of the gearbox
validation work and durability testing. Finished in
metallic grey ‘International’.
XP5 Completed 17 September 1993. Marketing
department car. First to be fitted with production spec,
627bhp engine and closest to production standard
including signed-off nose with Elan turn indicators and
no spot lamps, and near final spec interior. Finished in
metallic green ‘Silverstone’.
001 In build. Will be McLaren’s own car. It will be
third off"the line. Bright silver ‘Magnesium’.
002 Completed 24 December 1993. First customer car.
Finished in metallic grey ‘International’ with red stripe.
003 In build. Dark metallic grey ‘Carbon’.
004 In build. Bright solid red ‘Grand Prix'.
005 In build. Black metallic ‘Black 235’.
8 1
These are the eight body colours th a t McLaren recommends — you can, ot course, create your own scheme. McLaren Cars will have its own car finished in ‘Magnesium’, same as XP3