Flemke - Is this your McLaren? (Vol 5)

[Joe911]

AlmostUseful said:

I hear the McRib is making a comeback to uk McDonald's, 'spose that gives you a purpose for all the cars now, multi drive through trips without appearing to be the same greedy fat man...

Ribs, shmibs.

It's all about the McChocco Sundae!

[AlmostUseful]

Now we're down to the important stuff, this car nonsense has gone on too long!

Surely the sundae will follow a McRib!

[trackdemon]

Nice pair of F1 & P1 in EVO this month....

[flemke]

E65Ross said:

Thanks for the reply Flemke. How did you view the 12C? Was it an early or later car? I'm led to believe the later cars are significantly better/more well rounded; and the 650S takes it to a new level

Whilst ad a supercar I think the 650S does the styling better, I think if you want to drive around in a very high performance sports car looking tidy but less "hey, look at me!" I think the 12C does that very well... For that reason I prefer the 12C, but as you say, it's not available with 12C underpinnings which is a real shame.

Lots has been said about its ride quality, how did you find it compared to, say, your SLS black or a Porsche 911. I love the idea of a sports car which handles very well yet has a nice ride so you won't get annoyed on long trips if going to your favourite driving country for a blast!

The 12Cs I drove were early cars. They did not really need much improving. Performance-wise, all modern sports cars will more than do the job on public roads. The last thing one needs is a faster 12C or 458. What can usually be improved, and are more important than performance, are the steering and brake feel, ergonomics, how well it shifts (or the driver is able to shift) gears, engine note - that kind of thing.
Ride quality I don't really notice, TBH. I have had some very stiff road cars, but I cannot recall one that was too stiff for comfort. At the same time, people have told me about the great ride quality in the P1, and I have said, "Oh, really?"

Edited by flemke on Friday 2nd January 14:02

[flemke]

Joe911 said:

AlmostUseful said:

I hear the McRib is making a comeback to uk McDonald's, 'spose that gives you a purpose for all the cars now, multi drive through trips without appearing to be the same greedy fat man...

Ribs, shmibs.

It's all about the McChocco Sundae!

Ahem, that is a "McSundae Chocco", my friend.

[flemke]

AlmostUseful said:

Now we're down to the important stuff, this car nonsense has gone on too long!

Surely the sundae will follow a McRib!

Never particularly fancied the McRib - the bread doesn't really go with the ribs, but on their own the McRib "ribs" are like Spam with barbeque sauce.

Instead, I'd just have 2 McSundae Choccos.

Edited by flemke on Friday 2nd January 14:07

[flemke]

trackdemon said:

Nice pair of F1 & P1 in EVO this month....

Yes, indeed.

Richard Meaden is a smart and thoughtful guy and a very good driver. What he has to say is always worth hearing.

On the other hand, the accompanying article on F1 v P1 technical stuff, written by a chap named Michael Whiteley, had a couple of serious mistakes in it.

I have already written a corrective letter to evo.

[andyps]

flemke said:

Yes, indeed.

Richard Meaden is a smart and thoughtful guy and a very good driver. What he has to say is always worth hearing.

On the other hand, the accompanying article on F1 v P1 technical stuff, written by a chap named Michael Whiteley, had a couple of serious mistakes in it.

I have already written a corrective letter to evo.

Having read that section this morning I wanted to ask if you agreed about the need for a servo to be able to use carbon brakes on the F1 as I didn't remember you ever saying you had done put one on yours. Is that one of the mistakes?

[AlmostUseful]

flemke said:

Never particularly fancied the McRib - the bread doesn't really go with the ribs, but on their own the McRib "ribs" are like Spam with barbeque sauce.

Instead, I'd just have 2 McSundae Choccos.

Edited by flemke on Friday 2nd January 14:07

Really want an Ice Cream now. The beauty of living in a seaside resort is the ice cream parlours, the downside is the bloody tourists in the summer and the fact that all the parlours are shut in the winter!

[flemke]

andyps said:

flemke said:

Yes, indeed.

Richard Meaden is a smart and thoughtful guy and a very good driver. What he has to say is always worth hearing.

On the other hand, the accompanying article on F1 v P1 technical stuff, written by a chap named Michael Whiteley, had a couple of serious mistakes in it.

I have already written a corrective letter to evo.

Having read that section this morning I wanted to ask if you agreed about the need for a servo to be able to use carbon brakes on the F1 as I didn't remember you ever saying you had done put one on yours. Is that one of the mistakes?

I was not thinking of that, although he does some mixing-up of carbon-ceramic and carbon matrix.

Rather, he got two things quite wrong.

The first is that he says that the F1's frontal area is 1.79m², and that the P1's frontal area is "an estimated" 1.81m². He later attempts to project the P1's Vmax without its rev-limiter, and he comes up with 255mph, IIRC.
The F1 number of 1.79 is AFAIK an official number from McLaren, not a writer's estimate. I believe that it has been confirmed to reconcile with the F1's other known specs, such as Vmax, BHP, drag and gearing. So that is a pretty reliable number.

The thing that struck me is how close "1.81" is to 1.79. There's only 1.1% difference. In the real world, however, the P1 seems a much bigger car than the F1.

I checked a few numbers. The P1 is 2.6% taller than the F1. The P1 is 6.9% wider than the F1. The P1 "rectangle" is 9.7% bigger than the F1's.

Now, the disparity could potentially be smaller if the P1's glasshouse were smaller in proportion to its lower body than the F1's is, but in fact the P1's glasshouse is slightly larger proportionately than the F1's.

What that gets us to is a P1 frontal area that is a good 10% bigger than the F1's frontal area - a far cry from the 1.1% that Whiteley claimed.

Increasing the frontal area by about 9% will have a huge impact on theoretical Vmax. My guess is that the P1's absolute Vmax is very close to its "rev-limited" nominal Vmax of 217. If the F1 body/gear ratios were powered by the P1's 903 BHP, that would increase Vmax by about 28 mph, to say 268. If however that theoretical F1 had a drag area (drag x frontal area) that was 10% greater than the actual F1's, the theoretical Vmax would drop from 268 down to about 220.

Whatever the exact numbers, it takes only a brief glance at the two cars to see that the front of the P1 is unambiguously more than only 1.1% bigger than the front of the F1.

The other misstatement was when he wrote that the reason for the F1's central driving position was to avoid pedal offset and to improve visibility.

Although those factors were happy by-products of the central driving position, I think we all know, and it has been well-documented, that the primary purpose of Gordon Murray's central driving position was to enhance the driving experience by placing the driving symmetrically within the cabin, within the chassis, and in relation to the road.

The other major purpose of the central driving position was to allow for 2 passengers, rather than the one passenger that was the maximum for every other "supercar" made before or since. In the absence of a second passenger, the F1 enjoys a substantial increase in luggage capacity.

I am not trying to knock Michael Whiteley, but in this case he was mistaken.

[flemke]

AlmostUseful said:

flemke said:

Never particularly fancied the McRib - the bread doesn't really go with the ribs, but on their own the McRib "ribs" are like Spam with barbeque sauce.

Instead, I'd just have 2 McSundae Choccos.

Edited by flemke on Friday 2nd January 14:07

Really want an Ice Cream now. The beauty of living in a seaside resort is the ice cream parlours, the downside is the bloody tourists in the summer and the fact that all the parlours are shut in the winter!

Don't tell me Bournemouth....

[andyps]

Thanks for the response - not having the two cars to hand, or even the dimensions I had sort of accepted the frontal area figure but thinking about it with your input it doesn't seem likely that the figure given is correct.

I passed over the central driving position as it was clearly not the main reason for choosing it, and I don't think the carbon fibre tub system is the reason that is no longer an issue - I would suspect the larger overall car size has more to do with it but happy to be corrected on that.

[flemke]

andyps said:

Thanks for the response - not having the two cars to hand, or even the dimensions I had sort of accepted the frontal area figure but thinking about it with your input it doesn't seem likely that the figure given is correct.

I passed over the central driving position as it was clearly not the main reason for choosing it, and I don't think the carbon fibre tub system is the reason that is no longer an issue - I would suspect the larger overall car size has more to do with it but happy to be corrected on that.

I think a central driving position was never going to happen on the P1 for 2 reasons:

- McLaren had gone to considerable expense to develop the carbon tub for the 12C/650S, and had no interest in repeating that expense, and

- Although the P1 is almost as awkward to get into as the F1 is, if you have not tried it, it does not look to be terribly awkward.
The target market for the P1 was always going to include tons of nouveau riche from the Middle East, Far East, etc, who were more interested in having a superb country club bragging-rights experience than they were in having a superb driving experience. Such people are likely to be put off by something as funky and seemingly inconvenient as having to climb over a passenger seat to get to the driver's seat.

- A third factor may have been that the 1+2 seat configuration requires a longer passenger cell, other things being equal. The P1 needs extra space for containing all the batteries and other Robert Dyas kit, plus extra space to accommodate all the aerodynamic elements. Maybe they could have engineered all that stuff in along with 1+2, without needing to extend the wheelbase or overall body length, but it would have been a difficult.

[andyps]

A fourth reason may be that Gordon Murray owns the patent for the seating arrangement as used in the F1 - sure I saw that somewhere - which may have made it politically difficult to do.

And would a fifth be the economy of scale from using a tub closely related to the 650S rather than a completely new design for 375 cars?

[flemke]

andyps said:

A fourth reason may be that Gordon Murray owns the patent for the seating arrangement as used in the F1 - sure I saw that somewhere - which may have made it politically difficult to do.

And would a fifth be the economy of scale from using a tub closely related to the 650S rather than a completely new design for 375 cars?

I thought that patent was owned by McLaren Cars.
( http://www.google.com/patents/US5538309?dq=seating... )

The economy-of-scale point was what I was trying to say above, about not having to repeat the work done on 12C/650S tub. You are right: to develop a tub, both from a structural perspective and from a regulatory perspective, is big money. No doubt that, 10 years ago, when McLaren were putting together the business case for a new car company, they included the common "platform" principle in their calculations.

[andyps]

flemke said:

I thought that patent was owned by McLaren Cars.
( http://www.google.com/patents/US5538309?dq=seating... )

The economy-of-scale point was what I was trying to say above, about not having to repeat the work done on 12C/650S tub. You are right: to develop a tub, both from a structural perspective and from a regulatory perspective, is big money. No doubt that, 10 years ago, when McLaren were putting together the business case for a new car company, they included the common "platform" principle in their calculations.

Not sure where I read that GM owned the patent, probably something connected with the T25. This patent seems to fit for that - https://www.google.com/patents/WO2008110814A2?cl=e...

[flemke]

andyps said:

flemke said:

I thought that patent was owned by McLaren Cars.
( http://www.google.com/patents/US5538309?dq=seating... )

The economy-of-scale point was what I was trying to say above, about not having to repeat the work done on 12C/650S tub. You are right: to develop a tub, both from a structural perspective and from a regulatory perspective, is big money. No doubt that, 10 years ago, when McLaren were putting together the business case for a new car company, they included the common "platform" principle in their calculations.

Not sure where I read that GM owned the patent, probably something connected with the T25. This patent seems to fit for that - https://www.google.com/patents/WO2008110814A2?cl=e...

Makes sense.

Bear in mind that Gordon got the "original" idea for the F1's 3-seat configuration from one of these:

[anonymous-user]

flemke said:

Yes, indeed.

Richard Meaden is a smart and thoughtful guy and a very good driver. What he has to say is always worth hearing.

On the other hand, the accompanying article on F1 v P1 technical stuff, written by a chap named Michael Whiteley, had a couple of serious mistakes in it.

I have already written a corrective letter to evo.

I've had the pleasure of sitting next to Dickie on a couple occasions whilst he threw my latest creation around a track, and i can confirm, he can certainly pedal! ;-)


Not just me who noticed the P1 errors in Evo then........ lol (Tbh, these cars are so complex, even the manufacturers marketing dept doesn't get there stuff technically correct either, like the classic "P1 has no regen" etc

[anonymous-user]

andyps said:

A fourth reason may be that Gordon Murray owns the patent for the seating arrangement as used in the F1 - sure I saw that somewhere - which may have made it politically difficult to do.

And would a fifth be the economy of scale from using a tub closely related to the 650S rather than a completely new design for 375 cars?

There is also the not inconsiderable issue of how to deploy passenger air bags with an F1 style layout, not something an F1 ever had to worry about!!

[V8FGO]

I know you made a personal Vmax in the F1, but do you have plans to do the same with the P1.
I suppose as it is not the fastest kid on the block, is it of interest, it guess it may still be interesting how it gets there compared to the F1.
Are you happy with the P1 as I wonder if, given your car history it was something that
was perhaps expected as a purchase IYSWIM ?. I only ask, as I get the impression over the course of this thread that
for the gut tingling expectation and enjoyment the F1 and LCC Rocket have appeared to have given that most of all.