McLaren MP4-12C: Now it’s the performance photos & video

McLaren MP4-12C Performance

We should probably call today ‘McLaren Day’, not Valentine’s Day. For today is the day we get every last morsel of detail on McLaren’s first new car in almost twenty years – the McLaren MP4-12C.

Keen readers – and those not in Europe – will have seen we posted all the MP4-12C performance data at midnight last night – it was all embargoed until today. We also guessed that the MP4-12C would turn up on Top Gear last night, which it did.

We also threatened you with more detail, more photos and more video of the MP4-12C when McLaren sent it over this morning at the crack of dawn. Well, it’s a bit past the crack of dawn, but it’s here.

McLaren has sent a pretty big MP4-12C performance press release/press pack, so we thought we’d post that so every anorak can absorb every detail. We’ve also put up all 47 photos McLaren has sent us and the video shouting out the performance figures.

And really, this is the last of the hype. Now all that’s left is the real world. McLaren tell us they’ve built a car that is at least the equal of the Ferrari 458. On paper it certainly looks so. The looks may be a little more generic and a little less dramatic than the 458 – but that’s the British way.

There’s no arguing that the McLaren MP4-12C is the British Ferrari. We’re hoping it will do what the very best of British cars – sporting and otherwise – can do. And that’s to be an absolute doddle to drive – and entirely undramatic – when tootling around in everyday traffic.

But when the opportunity arises; when the roads are just right and when the mood takes, all it takes is a flex of the right foot and the car hunkers down and turns from waft to wail. That defines the Best of British.

Fingers crossed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cNXUaebLYk

By Cars UK