McLaren: The Road Cars 2010-24 (book)
Discussion
My pre-order copy of this new book arrived on Thursday, and I've now read it. As the blurb correctly notes, it is "The first and only book dedicated entirely to McLaren’s incredible road cars" from 2010 on, making it attractive for owners and fans.
What you get is a very nicely produced and satisfyingly hefty coffee-table book, with a lot of high quality brochure-type and studio photography. It's a chunky book and uses its length to go into detail about not only McLaren's core range but also to cover every special edition and one-off they've done since 2010 in detail. It's definitely a comprehensive tome, and bang up to date ending with the Artura and 750S.
What it doesn't do in my view is tell the story of McLaren Automotive. Its view is very much that of a sequence of car magazine articles; for each new model, the specs and details from the Press Release, some nice photos, a few interesting insights McLaren choose to reveal about the car's history perhaps, and then an overview and quotes from contemporary reviews. This is fine as far as it goes.
However, it lacks the depth of insight into the development process that Gordon Murray chose to share in Driving Ambition, being more of an outside view. At the same time it focuses more on celebrating the cars than on recounting the ups and downs of the company, or the trade-offs they were making. There are some intriguing nuggets here and there, talking about an influx of new engineers who contributed to the 650S' changes over the 12C or Ron Dennis' initial reaction to seeing the P1. However there's not much of the context behind the individual decisions.
I guess I'm really pining for a book which doesn't (yet) exist. One that would tell the story of how McLaren went from partnering with BMW to partnering with Mercedes to going it alone, with an engine derived from a Nissan Le Mans design via Ricardo. Crucially, the influence of ex-Lotus engineers on the car's recipe - composite body, no LSD, relatively narrow front tyres, hydraulic PAS with lots of feed/kick-back (delete as appropriate). How they lost Gordon Murray whose F1 established the company as a road car maker. What differences did it make when Ron Dennis left in 2017? How the Sports Series was both a success (more than doubling sales to over 4000 a year) but also a failure (costing significantly more to make than intended). How the company responded to the initial quality issues with the 12C, the ups and downs of profit and loss and changing ownership and the pressures and opportunities that presented management with.
What you get, in terms of words, is 80% McLaren press releases and quotes given to journalists, and 20% contemporary car journalism reports on the models. There's a lot of detailed information in here and nice photos. As long as you know what you're getting - the kind of book you wouldn't be at all surprised to see sitting on a coffee table in a McLaren dealer's waiting room - then there's little to criticise; the book succeeds on its own terms as a comprehensive and high quality publication.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0764367315
What you get is a very nicely produced and satisfyingly hefty coffee-table book, with a lot of high quality brochure-type and studio photography. It's a chunky book and uses its length to go into detail about not only McLaren's core range but also to cover every special edition and one-off they've done since 2010 in detail. It's definitely a comprehensive tome, and bang up to date ending with the Artura and 750S.
What it doesn't do in my view is tell the story of McLaren Automotive. Its view is very much that of a sequence of car magazine articles; for each new model, the specs and details from the Press Release, some nice photos, a few interesting insights McLaren choose to reveal about the car's history perhaps, and then an overview and quotes from contemporary reviews. This is fine as far as it goes.
However, it lacks the depth of insight into the development process that Gordon Murray chose to share in Driving Ambition, being more of an outside view. At the same time it focuses more on celebrating the cars than on recounting the ups and downs of the company, or the trade-offs they were making. There are some intriguing nuggets here and there, talking about an influx of new engineers who contributed to the 650S' changes over the 12C or Ron Dennis' initial reaction to seeing the P1. However there's not much of the context behind the individual decisions.
I guess I'm really pining for a book which doesn't (yet) exist. One that would tell the story of how McLaren went from partnering with BMW to partnering with Mercedes to going it alone, with an engine derived from a Nissan Le Mans design via Ricardo. Crucially, the influence of ex-Lotus engineers on the car's recipe - composite body, no LSD, relatively narrow front tyres, hydraulic PAS with lots of feed/kick-back (delete as appropriate). How they lost Gordon Murray whose F1 established the company as a road car maker. What differences did it make when Ron Dennis left in 2017? How the Sports Series was both a success (more than doubling sales to over 4000 a year) but also a failure (costing significantly more to make than intended). How the company responded to the initial quality issues with the 12C, the ups and downs of profit and loss and changing ownership and the pressures and opportunities that presented management with.
What you get, in terms of words, is 80% McLaren press releases and quotes given to journalists, and 20% contemporary car journalism reports on the models. There's a lot of detailed information in here and nice photos. As long as you know what you're getting - the kind of book you wouldn't be at all surprised to see sitting on a coffee table in a McLaren dealer's waiting room - then there's little to criticise; the book succeeds on its own terms as a comprehensive and high quality publication.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0764367315
Frankychops said:
Classic McLaren, it's depreciated by 33% already! 
Gassing Station | McLaren | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff