Here at Eurotive, we’re not exactly big fans of Dubai super car owners pouring molten gold over their Bugattis and Ferraris. But we’ve got to admit, seeing gold-plated engine components on the back of this McLaren F1 is quite a sight to behold, especially since now the precious metal serves a purpose other than just being a sign of wealth—to reflect heat. Now, we’re getting somewhere.
Source: Jalopnik
Marvel's Johnny Blaze denies ownership of fiery F1
No, the Ghost Rider didn’t trade in his fiery, trail-blazing chopper for a European super car. Man, this is such a waste. This car just happens to be on my list of top favorite Euros with ‘super’ before the ‘car’.
Although a little bit less impressive than the LM, this McLaren F1 in Santa Rosa, California, doesn’t deserve getting its ass lit up. Its owner reportedly left it parked for six months straight before taking it out for a spin. The consequence – a toasted BMW V12 mid-engine. I have one word to say to its owner – idiot.
This is the perfect example of poor car ownership. Super cars, or any car for that matter, are meant to be driven, fast. If your car’s not driven daily, you should at least warm up its engine before or after coming from work. What the heck is the point of buying a super car if you’re just going to leave it in your parking lot?
This just goes to show how many car owners don’t really know how to take care of their cars. Remember, it’s all right to be flashy, but at least know how to take care of your car, especially if it’s a rare super car which costs around two million US dollars.
Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/02/devils-in-the-details-mclaren-f1-meets-maker-in-california/
Dreaming of red and gold
We all know that the McLaren SLR has stopped production, and that is exactly why it’s painful to look at what has happened to this car. It’s the perfect example of what not to do to an exclusive sports car.
Named “Anliker McLaren SLR 999 Gold Dream”, this SLR is the product of Ueli Anliker Design of Switzerland. Mr. Anliker, hoping to catch Middle Eastern buyers in Dubai, slapped on a cow catcher on the bonnet, a Mustand rear-spoiler on the rear, and plenty of 24-carat gold plating all over the wheels, instrument panels, steering wheel and shift knob. Even the seats are made of gold fabric and linings. Talk about outrageous!
If you want to see more of this fantabulous SLR, just click the link below. Wearing sunglasses helps to reduce glare.
Source:
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/28/swiss-tuned-mclaren-slr-red-gold-dream-ends-up-in-yes-dubai/
The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
“Sport, light, racing.” SLR, for short. Car nuts would easily fall for the SLR, with its overly aggressive stance and Merc badge. But somehow, I’m not that impressed and I’m not sure why. The SLR is a joint car project by McLaren and Mercedes Benz. Costing around 300,000 pounds, I’d say there’s so many more supercars that are much more affordable, like the Nissan Skyline R35. The R35 costs around less than a third of the SLR’s base price, but can go head-to-head with the SLR on any track any time of the day.
I’m somehow relieved to hear that the last SLR to roll of the production lines is due this year. Perhaps it’s the styling that really got me nicked. I’m really into small, lightweight cars but the sight of the SLR simply gets me worked up. It screams, “if you can’t afford me, then don’t drive me,” which really ticks me off.
Anyway, I like almost everything about the car, but I don’t like it as a whole. Maybe it’s the image that it projects, as an ultra-expensive supercar. It has carbon-ceramics brake discs which are almost the same stuff the Porsches are famous for. Such discs are fade resistant, meaning you don’t ever have to replace them if you’re only going to drive the SLR on the streets. I’ve read somewhere that such brakes won’t really stop you when they’re not warmed up to the right temperature. That kind of bothers me because I’ve always planned on getting racing brake pads for my street ride. Now that I think about it, the city traffic won’t be able to get such pads up to the right temperature, which may be worth much less than its price. Anyway, the reason why they’re fade resistant is because the discs and the pads are made of the same material. It eliminates wearing by actually depositing worn brake material onto each other. I guess that’s the simplest way to explain it. Like the Veyron, it has a rear wing that flips at an angle to help when braking.
To complement the SLR’s brakes, it has a 5.4-liter, SOHC V8 engine that’s hand-built. I’m not sure but I guess ‘hand-built’ means engineers really assembled the engine piece by piece. The cylinders are angled 90 degrees to each other and have three valves each – the first time I’ve heard of such – and is prepped by a dry sump lubrication system to bring its center of gravity down. Such a system allows more aggressive handling especially around corners. It has a relatively lower compression ratio as compared to most cars that cost less – 8.8:1 – but has a Lysholm-type twin-screw supercharger which gives you around 13 psi of boost. It also has twin-intercoolers to feed the engine with super-dense air supply. The engine churns around 617 hp at 6,500 revs and 780 Nm of torque at 3,250 revs.
Now, I’d say that’s a lot of mid-end power. I guess it has a lot to do with the massive power-to-weight ration. Its drivetrain configuration – front mid-engine rear-wheel drive – is also a first time for me. I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess it’ll give you less oversteer as compared to MR cars, but you’d have to deal with more understeer because of the greater front weight. With its carbon fiber body, I’d say the SLR is a real puncher. Able to run from 0 to 60 mp/h in around 3.8 seconds is quite a feat. And with a top speed of 208 mp/h, the SLR can really give Porsches a run for horsepower.
But I’d still pick the Porsche 911 GT2 over the SLR. Now, I guess I have to admit I also look at a car’s looks. Despite the SLR’s huge potential for performance, I’d pass it for a Porsche. It looks too ‘sophisticated’ for my taste.
Source:
McLaren Formula One drivers Heikki Kovaleinen and Lewis Hamilton with the 2008 MP4-23
Ferrari’s long time rival in Formula One racing has always been McLaren. With a total of 160 races, 12 Drivers’ Championship and 8 Constructors’ Championship victories under its belt, McLaren has proved its dominance in racing.
Based in Woking, Surrey in the United Kingdom, McLaren was founded in 1963 by a Bruce McLaren, a New Zealander who used to build sports cars. Besides Formula One, McLaren also has successful campaigns in the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race and the Canadian-American Challenge Cup using powerful American V8 engines in their production race cars. The 1967 season of the Can-Am Challenge Cup was dominated by McLaren Mk6’s, which were the very first cars to don the signature orange McLaren race color.
Throughout the 67 season, it was Bruce McLaren himself behind the Mk6’s wheel. The car went through several engine swaps because of power and reliability issues. The team finally went with a Cosworth DFV engine to power the Mk6 throughout the season. Bruce and his running mate, then reigning Formula One World Champion Denny Hulme, went on to win five of the season’s six racing events. A year later, the M7 rolled out of the production lines with the same Cosworth powerplant. McLaren earned its very first championship in the Belgian Grand Prix that year, while Hulme won a year later in the Italian and Canadian Grand Prix events. A total of 5 races were won in the 1969 Formula One season, while eleven races and a driver’s championship were garnered in the Can-Am campaign.
1970 was a grim year for the manufacturer. Hulme had to retire for a while after his hands were scorched in a practice accident, while on June 2, 1970, Bruce McLaren lost his life after crashing at Greenwood. He was then test driving the new M8D race car set for the Can-Am campaign. At 270 km/h (170 mp/h), the car’s rear piece broke off, sending the car into a deadly spin which wrecked a marshall post made of concrete. McLaren instantly died upon impact. McLaren remained without a victory for the rest of 70 and 71 until the 1972 South African Grand Prix where Hulme won driving the M19C. The Can-Am campaign was abandoned in the end of the 72 season after McLaren was pummeled Porsches. However, by the time the Can-Am Championships was scrapped, McLaren was at the top of the tallies with 43 wins.
McLaren decided to focus solely on Formula One since then. It came to a point that they had to choose between engines from Peugeot and Lamborghini for their new cars, but they eventually took falls from choosing the former. Following their losses in the 90’s under the dominance of Renault-Williams, they dropped the Peugeot engines for Mercedes-Benz engines in 1994.
McLaren was determined to win as many seasons as possible with its new Mercedes-Benz engine.They came close to winning the 2000 season, but were stopped dead in their tracks by the Scuderia Ferrari prodigy, Michael Schumacher. Still, McLaren would remain to be Ferrari’s number one rival up to the present.
Their latest Driver’s Championship was won by Lewis Hamilton in the 2008 season, making him the youngest driver and first black man to ever win a Formula One Drivers’ Championship. It was also McLaren’s first Drivers’ Championship victory in nine years. Currently, McLaren’s latest car, the MP4-24, was publicly revealed on January 16, 2009. However, Pedro de la Rosa, McLaren’s test driver, gave a sad impression of the car saying that it had poor downforce resulting in less-than-impressive aerodynamics.
Overall, McLaren won eight Formula One Championships since it joined the prestigious event – 1974 by Emerson Fittipaldi, 1984 by Niki Lauda, 1985 by Alain Prost, 1988 by Ayrton Senna, 1989 by Alain Prost, 1990-1991 by Ayrton Senna, and 1988 by Mika Hakinnen.
Source:
The McLaren F1 LM with regular versions
I’m not exactly sure if I should include this car in Eurotive, but since it’s built in Europe, I might as well. The McLaren F1 LM was once considered as the fastest production supercar available in the market. At a price of $4,000,000, the LM is the most expensive supercar yet. It’s more expensive than the fastest supercar yet, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, which sells for $1,500,000.
There are only 5 LM’s in the world, and that is one of the reasons why it’s so expensive. It’s all about rarity, my friend. “Why only five,” you may ask. It’s because in 1995, the McLaren Formula One GTR won all top five spots in the 24 hour Le Mans event. So the five production models stand as a celebration of that victory.
Now to its specifics. The LM weighs a mere 1062 kg, which makes it a fierce contender on the racetrack. Now this is a Formula One car that has been thrown into the streets. Without the luxury amenities that most supercars have, the LM has been stripped down to its bare racing bones. Set your butt into its seat and start the engine to idling speed and you won’t even be able to hear yourself screaming, “It’s alive!”. Thanks to McLaren, they’ve placed as standard equipment genuine protective Formula One headsets so the driver can talk to passengers, if any.
The LM isn’t for rich kids wanting to go fast. It’s the real thing. Next to the Veyron 16.4, the LM is the fastest supercar on the streets with a top speed of 225 mph (still a far cry from the Veyron 16.4’s 408.47 kmh recorded top speed). You won’t have time to listen to Destiny’s Child or Nelly in this baby. It’s made for one thing only – to race. Its 6,000 cc V12 engine has a maximum output of 668 Hp at 7,800 revs and 705 Nm of torque at 4,500 revs. A little slower than the Veyron 16.4, it clocks in at 2.9 sec from 0 to 60 mph.
How do you spot one of these rare monsters? Just look out for a bright Papaya orange supercar screaming the McLaren emblem. For a look back in history, the legendary Bruce McLaren’s race color was Papaya orange, so this is a tribute.
And how do you distinguish between a genuine LM and McLaren F1 roadcars dressed to look like LM’s? Look at the mid engine. Only an LM has a genuine, blow-the-galleries Formula One racing engine. It also inherited the original transmission system, bodywork, and 18 inch wheels of its big brothers in Formula One.
The driver’s seat along the center line, a genuine Formula One carbon fiber bucket seat, is the stuff of wet dreams. The two passenger seats at either side are made of moncoque material.
As for its MR (mid-engine rear-wheel drive) configuration, I think drifting this would create too much oversteer than an ordinary drifter can handle. I bet the one and only Drift King, legendary Japanese Keiichi Tsuchiya, can handle it with his eyes closed.
I can’t believe my hands are shaking while writing this. I think I can now safely say, there’s only two European cars I want to own in my lifetime – the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 and the McLaren F1 LM.
Nevermind the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, or Porsches. Everything about the LM breathes Formula One. This is the stuff driver’s dreams are made of. Even McLaren Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton dreams of one day putting under his name the keys to the LM. He has been promised ownership of it if he wins the title. Unlike him who has a shot at owning the LM, I can only dream.
Sources:
http://www.carzi.com/2008/03/28/lewis-hamilton-promised-mclaren-lm-supercar-for-2008-f1-title-win/
http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/vehicles/road/cars/mclaren_f1_lm.html
© 2009 Eurotive. Powered by Wordpress.
