The Car's the Star - McLaren F1 - Part 4

Quentin Willson provides an in depth look at the McLaren F1 supercar in this episode of "The Car's the Star"

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• McLaren
• F1
• GTR
• LM
• supercar
• exotic

[NinjaRunningWild]

British can do it best, but not as consistently.

[kinkaid25]

@joyfulvulture  yes bruce mclaren may have started the company, but ron dennis brought this company along long way in acheivement than bruce mclaren could have ever thought possible

[Peloton25]

@justnotcricket - Cosworth would have been an interesting possibility but I've never heard that mentioned at all. Gordon did state that Ferrari was obviously capable of building an engine like the one he wanted, but yes, for very obvious reasons they were not invited to submit a proposal.

The BMW engine he ended up with is truly wonderful - the fact that it won Le Mans twice (1995 & 1999) is pretty amazing as well.

[justnotcricket]

@Peloton25 I see, thanks for that. I'm guessing it had something to do with the fact that this thing was always going to be a road car and because not many have the experience of building road and race engines, which limits the choice. What about technical expertise though? I'm sure Ferrari and Cosworth could also have done it but were ruled out for obvious reasons?

[Peloton25]

@justnotcricket - The other two were Isuzu and Judd. in 1991 Isuzu had developed a 3.5L V12 for Lotus F1 and were very interested in participating in Gordon's project, but seriously lacked the pedigree that was needed for his supercar. There's a discussion and photo of the V12 on a forum called japanesenostalgiccar/com you may want to look at. I am not certain why Judd was ruled out but again it could have had something to do with limited name recognition or lack of production car experience.

[justnotcricket]

@Peloton25 Thank you. On a side note it could also be argued that it's a pity they didn't use a super-cruising Rolls Royce jet engine ;)

Either way, I'm glad they went with the Munchen boys, Honda power would've been cool but large displacement was the way to go on this one (you probably know what I'm talking about). I remember reading that there was another 2 candidates but they weren't feasible, do you know who they were?

[Peloton25]

@justnotcricket - Spot on - great observations.

[justnotcricket]

@Suprahampton

1) Bruce Mclaren was a Kiwi.

2) The world being what it is now, people from all over the world work all over the world.

Basic stuff really, Your comment was almost as asinine as the ones from people who don't seem to understand how the auto industry or industry in general works. Engine builders make engines, gearbox makers make gear boxes etc etc. A German engine doesn't make this car German in the same way a Ricardo gearbox doesn't make the Veyron British. Simple, stuff.

[krirks]

I watched this and so curious about the owner of the F1, who is this guy?

Too bad, it turned out he was a scammer.

[Carlonepapa]

The head of this project is Gordon Murray a South African.

I love some british cars, like Aston Martin, Jaguar and others, but this car does no reflect the actual British industry, or in better words, contemporary brit Ind.

Anyway it is a Superb machine. Much more impressive then the new version.

[ruddypeasant]

@Peloton25 thanks for the quick reply and for uploading too! It was a good programme even if Quentin gets a bit rule britannia at the end. I always chuckle when I see part 2 and he's running down the competition. Look! The big cat's done a wee!

[Peloton25]

@ruddypeasant - Someone in the UK encoded it into MPEG format back in 2005 and shared it on the F1 forum. Then a year or so later I uploaded the clips to YouTube so more people could enjoy them.

The thing I find funny is that some of the clips have tremendously more views than others which means quite a lot of people have missed watching the whole thing. When I originally uploaded them you couldn't link them to run concurrently the way you can now.