They did have a very substantial track record of designing and producing CF cars around specified engine parameters, it's not a similar leap. They have no engine production experience whatsoever. I think the hubris involved in competing with over 60years of high performance engine building in Ferrari's, and even Lamborghini/Volkswagen's case, will bite hard and low. And 'loving' Ron Dennis as I do, I hope McGrenade enters the automotive lexicon, not that he'll lose a farthing of his own money.
We are way off topic but I thought that in the name of automotive education I should put this one to bed now. "Just before Christmas 2004, 30 employees and board members from Tesla came to Eberhard’s Woodside, California, house to decide what the car would look like. He had commissioned four top automotive designers to draw sketches, which he taped to his living room wall. He gave everyone three red stickers and three green and told them to flag what they liked and didn’t like. By the time the eggnog was gone, the green dots had coalesced around a drawing by Barney Hatt of Lotus Design in England. This is how a Silicon Valley startup does car design." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/tesla.html Who knows McLaren may have hired Lotus to design the engine for them
there are plenty examples of full manufacturers building crap engines... Ford engines shooting out spark plugs... BMWs throwing rods through there blocks on M models... Corvette engines and terrible piston slap... Porsche with rear main seals blowing out and main shaft bearings, GMs 6.5 diesel poping at will (think mid 90s) Mercedes and there naturally aspirated 55 amg motor... as longs as testing and quality control is there... id give them a fair shot. concnerning the Tesla... Tesla did not engineer there chassis or the majority of the car. Effectively they worked with Lotus to instal batteries and a electric motor in there car. Thats it. These guys are not chassis engineers and would not know the first thing about the glue required to hold there own chassis's together
Just to clarify, McLaren will not build the engine for the 12C. Rather it has been outsourced to Ricardo: >8^) ER
I had missed that, thanks for the info. They look like a very capable outfit. http://www.ricardo.com/en-gb/Engineering-Consulting/Motorsport/Engines/
I don't follow: [Those who have abundant experience still find new designs and technologies difficult to master] therefore [Newbies will succeed] ...?
There are conflicting stories out there on who will actually manufacture the engine. Some say that it will be Ricardo, in which case they may be outsourcing some of that effort. After a bit more digging it appears that actual engine production could be handled by Menard Competition Technologies. McLaren certainly don't have the facilities to do it themselves. The 7-speed SSG transmission was designed and will be built by Graziano -the Italian transmission company with strong links to Ferrari. This came about because Graziano had purchased a UK company called Vocis Driveline Controls. Vocis was founded by 5 ex-Ricardo engineers (led by Mike Everitt) whom designed and built the double-clutch gearbox for the Bugatti Veyron. >8^) ER
I think he was making the comment that the Tesla and the Evora seem to share many similar styling cues
