Gotta love the reporters: "It's British, right?" I imagine the people in Woking are shaking their heads and saying "Bloody stupid yanks!!!"
Now I know why I do not like the look of this car. This guy explains it perfectly and proudly. They designed it in the wind tunnel first and then let the stylists tinker with it to make it look better. How sad. A car is more than numbers. It's art. Treat the art as your second priority and don't be surprised if it's not a looker. It's not a looker. McLaren's engineers won... but the potential beauty of the car lost.
In your mind. Fortunately there are 7 billion other people on this planet may (or may not) disagree with you. That's art.
Not only is it art, but it is highly functional art. I've seen the P1 in person - not just photos in magazines or videos on the internet - and it looks every bit a super model in spite of its aerodynamic properties being paramount to the design process. If you care about performance the way that McLaren do you'll always start by refining the technical aspects first and then worrying about what it should look like after. They used this exact same philosophy when developing the McLaren F1. These are performance cars first and foremost and the performance of the P1 is set to be stellar - like nothing else with a registration plate (they predict). Besides, if you're just buying a car to look at it get a poster instead and save yourself a whole lot of money. >8^) ER
To each his own. Everybody has their own opinions and beauty comes in many forms. The McLaren concept of form follows function is an extension of their racing DNA. The "beauty" in P1 is to recognize the efforts McLaren has made to establish new performance capabilities for road cars. McLaren has not painted the complete picture as yet, but if the downforce numbers as advertised are factual, they keep weight under 2,900 lbs, provide aggregate power 800-900 HP with Active Aero -- That would be "Beautiful" to customers who intend to explore those attributes at road tracks. "Pretty" is another subject.
Functional art? In your eyes, the beauty of car is technology> lines; on the contrary, TheMayor thinks that lines>technology. Just different car making philosophies, that's why we love Ferrari and McLaren. Personally, I love lines with functions inside.
The F150 is officially in Ferrari Web site. http://www.ferrari.com/italian/gt_sport_cars/serie-speciale-limitata/Pages/serie-speciale-limitata.aspx
It is certainly going to be a very interesting 2013 as automotive magazines and shows compare the F70, P1 and 918 against each other! What a great time to be a car enthusiast!
Pagani does form and function so much better. If I'm spending nearly $2M for a car, I don't see why I can't get both.
This thing will be a track MONSTER. Using KERS to fill in torque during the lag caused by the huge turbos on the lighter V8 enabling the P1 to weigh less than the F70 will is very beautiful.
You really can't get maximum performance and beauty. You can get a LOT of performance and beauty but Maximun performance is technical not beautiful. Look at the Pinnacle of Performance LMP 1. Image Unavailable, Please Login
This was the pinnacle of LMP1. The actual pinnacle - at least the quicker car - is the Toyota TS030 with RWD super cap KERS. Looks better but similar...
Very similar especially to the average person. You can make more classically beautiful race cars but they will never be as fast as one designed to go as fast as possible with looks a second place consideration. I think it's fair to say the P1 was designed to go as fast as possible around a track and F70 was designed to be VERY fast but still be classically beautiful. I still think that in their way super technical designs can be beautiful but do feel "in their way" is the key difference. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Me thinks the Toyta is pretty, and it has proven to be faster then the butt ugly Audi. Another great example is the porsche 1998 GT1, drop dead gorgeous car, and 100% designed for performance.. Key point that is left ut is that a big part of why LMP1;s are currently ugly, is the regulations which constrict much of the design, and are actually implemented to bring the performance down...