The mid-2010s were the era of the Holy Trinity – firstly the hybrid hypercar trio of LaFerrari, Porsche 918 Spyder and McLaren P1, then, slightly lower down the food chain, came the super-sports car trinity of 458 Speciale, 911 GT3 and the McLaren 650S. With more style and even more performance than the blistering MP4-12C that came before it, Woking’s offering was a promising new entry to the supercar segment.
The 12C had promised to detonate an atom bomb on the supercar establishment when it was launched in 2011: faster, cleverer, all-carbonfibre, a McLaren to evoke the intensity of the 1990s F1 for a new age. Unfortunately for McLaren, the rival 458 Italia offered not only the allure of a Ferrari but better throttle response, more consistent brake feel, more intuitive body control and finer balance. The sensational P1 proved beyond doubt that McLaren could build a car to blow minds and pull at heart-strings; next it turned its attention to refining the 12C. The result was the 650S, a facelift and name-change in one.
McLaren MP4-12C (2011 – 2014) – Ferrari 458 performance for used Porsche 911 money We got our first glimpse of it in issue 194 (April 2014), where we introduced it as ‘Son of P1’. It took its swoopy, swooshy front-end design cues from the hypercar, uprated the now-familiar M838T 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 and extensively reworked the suspension, stability control and transmission.
In many ways, it was the car the 12C wanted to be from the start, with more development time and the influence of external feedback.
28Engine, gearbox and technical highlights Power was up from 616bhp to 641bhp at 7250rpm, torque up 58lb ft to 500lb ft at 6000rpm, with 95 per cent of that available between 3000 and 7000rpm. The most impressive stat was 0-100mph in 5.7sec, 0.6sec faster than an F1. This was truly the decade when baby supercars grew up.
