The 12C in hindsight

[Zadkiel]

I have a two part question here for 12C owners. Firstly, when released they were pretty largely accused of being lacking in fun or involvement. Widely labelled as very fast but somehow missing something special. Now this seems to be mentioned less when looking back on them in hindsight. So is this because a) It was overplayed when new and they weren't really that lacking. b) They are a bit older now and the bar for judging them has been lowered a bit so they don't seem as bad. c) It's just not mentioned as much due to them being replaced but the label stands true.

And the second part of this, if it is a fair call to say they are certainly lacking something that the latter McLarens thoroughly rectified, can this be fixed? Is it the suspension tuning, the engine tuning, the tyres, something simple? Or is it a fundamental characteristic of the car itself that will never change.

I can't help but feel it can't be too fundamentally ingrained since the 650S shares the engine and chassis and supposedly did much to fix this. However of course McLaren claim the 650S was vastly changed so maybe this is true.

Please leave out any biases or preferences on 12C vs 650S due to looks or anything else. Just interested in this key attribute.

[Zadkiel]

Interesting responses. I read the Evo story but it didn't really conclude things as well as I would have liked. I'm finding it very tricky to choose between all of these McLarens!