The McLaren MP4-12C could fairly be described as a ‘Game-changer.’ Aside from being a cliché beloved of car writers, the dictionary defines it as ‘an event, idea or procedure that effects a significant shift in the current way of doing or thinking about something’.
No arguments, then, for the 12C (as it came to be known) heralded a new breed of supercar; fielding new technologies from its composite construction to its suspension system, set new dynamic and performance standards and made for such a compelling foe to Ferrari’s 458 on launch that Maranello rejigged its entire supercar strategy and development trajectory in response.
It was far from perfect, the 12C, but it was a game-changer and it is an icon.
The 12C wasn’t just a new kind of supercar but a new entry from a new manufacturer. A new manufacturer with a decades-long history, notwithstanding. There’d been two McLaren road cars before: the Bruce McLaren/Gordon Coppuck-designed M6GT in the late 1960s (of which three prototypes were built), and Gordon Murray’s McLaren F1 launched in 1993, built under the McLaren Cars banner. But the MP4‑12C was part of a new enterprise: McLaren Automotive.
A number of bold technology decisions on the 12C included the innovative Proactive Chassis Control (PCC) suspension system; Brake Steer, which precisely nipped the inside-rear brake in place of a limited-slip differential; a clean-sheet, twin-turbo powerplant, and McLaren’s own native infotainment and satnav system, dubbed IRIS. No wonder those early production cars suffered a few electrical teething troubles.
