Why I hate McLaren

I’ve seen most of them up close including P1 and they’ve all looked pretty small to me. Apologies for my ignorance but don’t they all have pretty much the same wheel base? I don’t hate mclarens whatever mods put in the title of this thread, just think they should have aimed lower and be a lot less arrogant with their prices and marketing lies. A second hand one plus warranty is a great buy imo.

I do hate Ron Dennis though

 

aim for the stars, nothing wrong with that.
Hey, if you ask for a strong price and get it, can't fault them for that. And, Mclaren does have a following that supports the latest car.
I purchased pre owned. I have never regretted it. the 675lt is an incredible machine.

 

Weight if you really use a performanec car is everything, the single greatest virtue of any serious performance car is weight. Thats why the heavy veyron and porche Turbo dont make great performance cars(they are appealing fast luxury Gts), and why a Gt3 is so much better than a turbo for any sort of serious driver.
In the supercar sector acheiving low weight with high horsepower and reasonable comfort is a magic formula.

The Cf tub confers a few great benefits. 1 is stiffness which directly relates to handling and ride compliance, tub stiffness allows for more precise handling while still maintaining ride, 2. layout, the seats on the Cf tub are close to the center, thats relater to structure but superior from a performance perspective.
3. Weight, CF tubs can be lighter.

Whether Maclaren is executing the benefits optimaly is another debate and maybe thats what you imply?.

There is also a question when you have a CF tub and then metal subframes how much weight you save. A lotus elise weights way less than a CF 4c, and the 4c due to poor suspension choices never capitalized on the stiffnes benefit of the CF tub.
Seems like Maclaren is saving some weight compared to ferrari, but probably at a higher production cost vs aluminum. Their cars are probably stiffer and theres some marketing advantage.

 

Exactly - lighter, stiffer equals better performance. Its been proven as they outperform all rivals in their respective categories. People who have these cars know the deal which is why they keep buying them.

 

From a pure racing standpoint carbon tub is superior but for production cars it’s not so black and white and there are different types of carbon and alloys obviously. Even given the tub is where mclaren is more advanced than competitors though, rest of their cars are not the best. Engine, hybrid systems, gearbox, infotainment, differential... Active suspensions are another grey area and not present on all cars anyway

 

You’ve probably got the best deal then, no wonder you’re happy. That’s their most revered car so far so as long as it doesn’t break down second hand must be a great deal.

 

Agreed.

The performance differences at this level are imo moot anyway. These cars abilities are way beyond their owners, hence all the nanies, and for that matter beyond road car tires. The differences are minute and a stat on paper extracted by a professional driver. Paper stats are a significant sales driver though.

In other areas Ferrari all the important intangibles down. From styling to power charateristsics, to engine sound, steerign feel and styling. These intagibles are at least as important as paper numbers.

For sure didferent people place different values on different things. The question is how maclaren hones its product in terms of the intangibles, if they even do it, and the cost to get there. Otherwise like lambo theyre the bridesmaid, maybe thats a big enough market anyway.

 

Bc-03 Concept

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he limitations of using the same tub, and a limted budget

 

Please tell me that's a joke. I can't believe McLaren is making even uglier designs. I thought the Senna was the worst it could get. Then the Senna LM happened. And now this...

McLaren made my favorite road car ever with the McLaren F1 and it's depressing seeing them do this.

 

It is a joke, another $4million joke

 

This can't be true? How can they **** up on so many levels and through so many occasions.

 

Ive bought a lot of cars, sometimes 3 to 5 per year so I have experience with many brands. Fortunately Ive been pretty lucky getting things sorted if there was a problem but I can certainly imagine where someone drops the ball and then it domino effects from there. I have found that usually if you are reasonable and level headed you can get things resolved properly but I know that doesn't always happen.

 

Gordon Murry made your favorite road car while at Maclaren, Besides a cf Tub the current(Ron Dennis) cars draw no conceptual lineage to the F1.

Senna LM is pretty cool in the flesh, esp in black its a design all about function, lots of little details photos dotn capture but are a joy to behold for the mechanical gearhead. But yes classicaly beautiful it is not. But not every car has to be.

I do agree with you though, a KIa has so ably demonstarted you can make a good looking car just as well as a ugh looking one. Current Maclrens to me are engineers cars, while objectively they are in the hunt, lack so many of the important intangibles the italians do so well and are part and parcell of the supercar experience.

One needs only look at the Murray T50 to see what a 500K mass produced version car could have been from Maclren.

 

Hard to hate a car like this:

 

Like what?

 

Sticky buttons & unreliable OEM batteries?!?

Seriously though, the Mac in post # 266 looks the business...T

 

Sound, throttle responce, design elegance, plethora of small details.

I love th tghe senna below s car because it is so brutaly puposeful form follows function to a T, but beauty its not.
Porche 918 looked great.
La ferrari is a true beauty.
Point is others can acheive the same function and still look great, youn may say beuty is subjective but true beauty sells. maclarens are engineers cars, good idea if winning a race is all that counts, less good if your focus is the luxury market where subjective factors are huge.

The T50 is designed with subjective factors havign at least equal billing, its about the driving expereince, thats not just raw speed( which maclrens have)hence the na v12,

 

Sound - which cars are you going to compare?
Throttle response - are you insulting that the 720 for example doesn't respond like an F8 or Pista? if so you are wrong.
Looks - too subjective but I like what Mclaren is doing.
Function - which street legal Ferrari cn hang with a Senna or a 765LT on a track?
What others can compare?
T50 - this is not even in the same discussion

Let me help you a bit, Ive had 2 Mclarens and I think about 10-12 Ferraris, Lambo and God knows how many Porsches. The Mac is a force to reckon with from every perspective. You can choose to believe what you want but this is coming from an unbiased owner of all these cars.

 

Kool aid drinkers look past the short comings and deflect to others.

 

So you really bond with your cars.

 

No, I bond to my wife and children. The cars are pure entertainment for me. I enjoy what each mnfr does and how they do it and I am fortunate to be able to have owned and driven so many. For now, I have a few keepers and another baby on the way which should cover me for a while. I am not too excited about these planned hybrids.

 

Really I love my family, the bond is natural and inbuilt.

The human machine interface is an entirely different bond reference, a something one grows into, more so with some cars than with others, its not a love thing its mind machine interface.. Some take time, other come faster, that depends on the machine and the nature of the driver. Riding motorcycles when I was younger, the machine or some of them became an extension of ones body, the midn thought it and the machine responded as an extension of the will. Cars are more complex than ,motoccyles, it takes time for them to become an extension of you and your will, for you to feel the machine, to really know it, thereby allowing you to maximse what the machine can do and the experience thereof. Thats different to entertaining yourself with a quick power thirll..
Its why some are considered greats and others not, its not all about objective performance. Its like art how you feel getting there, and how far it can take you and imerse you. A lot of that has to do with the humans who concieved and designed the machine, some are engineers, some artists some both.

Point is Murry made cars with amongst other prioritites the subjective experience, along with very clever enginering, Thats why the F1 is so highly regarded, its not just how fast oit is, its how it drives the simplicity and purity of concept, alowing a human machine interface and bond other cars don't acheive, maiatas have that too. I think it was Rowan Atkinson(mR bean) who said you could spend a lifetime enjoying the F1 and it would reveal more to you with each year as you got to know it more and learned it. Ferrais have some of that too, although the modern ones far less.

Lets say we derive our "entertainment" from cars very diffently and with different criteria. You have your opinions based on being able to afford a rapid sucession of volume, and mine come differently. No right answer, just different views.

And to your point, these are cars. replaceable mechanical machines, not ones chilldren no need to be agressive or defensive, its just cars and fun.

I' m a huge lotus fan because I appreciate their strong points, but in other ways depending on ones priorities they're buckets of crap. We apreciate different things in cars. I think the Maclarens made now are not lineal decendants of the F1, which is the road car that put Maclren on the road car map, and is the car that embodies nearly all I think desireable in a road car. Modern Maclrense to me are by comparison crass, not very clever or beutiful. But hey like art we all have difrerent tastes and its apparently all subjective?.

I agree with you about the hybrids, the worst of all worlds carrying two powerplants with thge excess weight that implies. However it is possible an electric flywheel as on the la ferrari can negate lag when applied to a turbo car, making it feel very Na, or just enhance a NA mtor..

In any event I think the era of the workable desirable electric sportscar is near and with objective numbers that will be too hard to ignore. Given that most moderns offer a relatively anodyne experince anyway, why not go for the better objective numbers of an electric, yeah you dont have the noise, but very few do that well now anyway. With an electric you pick up and immdeiacy of respose no ICe can can deliver. Whats to loose, were already into paddles and eps, I'll trade some overwrought fake noise for imediacy. Or put another way, imo modern supercars are already 80% of the way to an electric in how they drive, what they lack is the imediacy of power responce of an elctric, for some manufactured noise and less objective performance.

 

I'll have a manual GT3, Pista, F12 and 765 LT. With an 812 GTS on the horizon I think I will have the best of the best from each. Nothing from Lambo interests me enough buy one right now although I really like the Perf. If you want real world feedback I can give that to you, if you want to live through your imagination or YouTube that's fine as well.