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