PM editor Alan Duggan was part of a small group of South African journalists invited to drive McLaren Automotive’s record-busting MP4-12C supercar on its home test track at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in England. To say that he was impressed would be like describing Shakira’s hips as ‘okay’.

Preternaturally serene, apparently oblivious to the squeal of tortured rubber and the sheen of perspiration coating my forehead, the test driver raised his voice above the McLaren’s glorious baritone: “Relax… let the car do the work for you.” So I did, and it did, and what came next was a trip to automotive nirvana.

Can you fall completely and irrevocably in love within the space of a single autumn afternoon? Do purple prose and shameless hyperbole belong in a car review? If we’re talking about a palpably sexy amalgam of carbon, aluminium, electronic wizardry and engineering genius – plus the kind of performance that elevates pulse rates to beyond critical – then we would have to say yes.

Meet the McLaren MP4-12C, a race-bred sportscar that promises to revolutionise the industry and shake up some very respectable marques indeed. By all accounts, its major competitor is the formidable Ferrari 458 Italia, a car boasting an even more impressive heritage – and therein lies the challenge for McLaren Automotive, a new company with deep pockets and large goolies.

South African Greg Levine, the company’s amiable sales and marketing director, says the 12C represents the first step in a programme that will see the introduction of a new high-performance sportscar every year. This is not just big talk: in 2011 alone, McLaren Automotive not only torture-tested, refined and launched its 12C, but also established the first retail outlets in a planned global network of 35, opened an impressive manufacturing facility, and launched a new GT team. They expect to roll out 2 000 cars in 2012, escalating this to 4 000 units by the middle of the decade. As Levine says: “The 12C will not be a one-hit wonder.”

Probably the most significant component of the 12C’s chassis is the MonoCell, a one-piece resin transfer-moulded carbon fibre tub weighing just 75 kg. Hollow and immensely strong, it forms the structural basis of the entire car, contributing to its low weight and overall efficiency. The Mono- Cell also provides the 12C with a high torsional sti. ness-to-weight ratio, acting as a safety survival cell. Aluminium extrusions and castings are jig-welded into the finished assembly and bolted directly to the MonoCell.

Back to the adrenaline rush, and our afternoon with the McLaren MP4-12C.

For the uninitiated, Dunsfold Park is the track made famous by that trio of flamboyant British motoring journalists and their apparently mute test driver, a mysterious character who wears a white racing suit and has a penchant for self-help audio. We got to grips with the car on the figure-of- eight circuit while keeping a watchful eye for learner drivers and stray aircraft (it’s a busy place, and half an hour before we first floored the gas pedal, the place was awash with L-plates).

Now let’s talk numbers. The McLaren sprints from zero to 100 km/h in 3,3 seconds (or a blistering 3,1 seconds with optional Corsa tyres). It covers the standing quarter-mile in 10,9 seconds and registers a top speed of 330 km/h. Stopping power? How about 100 km/h to standstill in just 30,5 metres?

In its debut Nürburgring Nordschleife media test earlier this year, Sport Auto’s editor-in-chief Horst von Saurma-Jeltsch recorded a single-lap time of 7:28 in a production-spec 12C. In a flying lap, the 12C proved to be 10 seconds quicker around the “Green Hell” than the nearest Ferrari, and even faster than so-called “hypercars” from Koenigsegg and Pagani.

Power is provided by a 3,8-litre twin-turbo V8 engine designed by McLaren and built by Ricardo in Shoreham. Surprisingly light (it weighs just 199 kg) and extraordinarily powerful for its size, it churns out 441 kW at 7 000 r/min and 600 N.m of torque from 3 000 to 7 000 r/min. A flat-plane crankshaft allowed McLaren’s engineers to place the engine low in the chassis and just behind the driver, lowering the car’s centre of gravity and optimising its handling.

It’s mated to a dual-clutch, seven-speed “SSG” transmission featuring three settings: Normal, Sport and Track modes. Each provides a progressive immediacy of gear shift, operated through fingertip controls mounted on a rocker behind the steering wheel: you upshift by pulling with the right hand or pushing with the left, and vice versa to downshift. It’s very quick, swopping cogs several times faster than you can blink.

How does it feel behind the wheel? Amazingly comfortable. After squeezing into all too many sportscars with near-asdammit fixed seats, offset pedals, tiny windows and the ergonomics of a playground swing, the McLaren was a revelation. The steering column is centred on the driver, as are the brake and throttle pedals, and the low windscreen cowl provides six degrees of downward vision from eye height, allowing you to aim the car perfectly into a corner. You even have a good rear view, for heaven’s sake.

Then there are the dihedral doors (first seen in McLaren’s legendary F1), which allow driver and passenger to get into and out of the car with surprising ease. I may not have accomplished this exercise with dignity, but neither did I need to contort myself in such a way that I ended up with a surgical truss.

Having enjoyed a relatively leisurely drive along the tree-lined country roads of Surrey, interspersed with a couple of short bursts of acceleration (it’s a boy thing), I returned to Dunsfold Park for a track outing under the tutelage of McLaren test driver Mat Jackson, a formidably talented British Touring Car racer who is not easily rattled. From that point on, it was pure adrenaline rush. Mat’s calm voice led me through apexes, acceleration and braking points, warned me of hidden turns and rough surfaces, and generally equipped me with the information I needed to drive faster and better. Within a single lap, the tyres were squealing and the exhausts were howling a melody that only the initiated would understand.

Put simply, the McLaren handles like a dream. Much of the credit goes to its clever brake steer system, a variation on the electronic driver aid used with signal success on the MP4-12 Formula One car all of 14 years ago. It was subsequently banned, but has since been developed for the 12C as a control system to prevent wheelspin and improve traction.

In essence, it does the same job as a “torque-vectoring” differential, using the same hardware as the 12C’s electronic stability control (ESC) system to prevent wheelspin, reduce understeer and boost track times. It works by assessing the steering angle to determine the driver’s intended course and applying the inside rear brake to increase the yaw rate and resume the desired course, e¤ ectively supporting a driver who has misjudged the corner (er... that would be me).

The ProActive chassis control system, based on double wishbones with coil springs and featuring adaptive damping, provides much higher stiffness in roll compared with conventional suspension systems, as well as greater comfort in a straight line. The dampers are connected hydraulically and linked to a gas-filled accumulator, providing adaptive responses depending on road conditions and driver preference. You select Normal, Sport or Track settings through the Active Dynamics panel; each mode is responsible for managing roll control system pressure, adaptive damping and ESC settings.

My test drive completed, I handed over to Mat for what we agreed would be a “more vigorous” lap. This evolved into a threelap chase of such vigour that my own telematics readout – handed to me later by the McLaren test team – resembled the perambulations of someone with a Zimmer frame. Whatever… I still had a ball.

McLaren’s Greg Levine says he and his team have a shared vision: they look forward to the day when a gang of kids in a playground talk about the cars they want to own when they grow up, and – rather than citing Ferraris and Lamborghinis – speak wistfully of McLarens. They may not have long to wait.

Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za to view a video of PM’s editor in the adrenaline-pumping McLaren MP4-12C, and to read a blog on his experience. Also visit PM’s Facebook page at www.popularmechanics.co.za/facebook for a photo album of this race-bred
supercar, courtesy of McLaren Automotive.