MP4-12C Spider: McLaren’s N70m masterpiece

This year’s model is an even more intimidating machine. Having only seen unreal, slick photos of McLaren’s supercar, the MP4-12C Spider, I was rather startled to see the car in real-life, still looking unreal and slick. What remained to be seen that warm California morning is if it would drive like that. While ideas of […]

This year’s model is an even more intimidating machine. Having only seen unreal, slick photos of McLaren’s supercar, the MP4-12C Spider, I was rather startled to see the car in real-life, still looking unreal and slick. What remained to be seen that warm California morning is if it would drive like that. While ideas of feats of daring burnouts and grandiose tire-shredding accomplished with James Bond-like élan came up, the reality is that this would be, simply, a day’s driving in a well-loved brand’s latest masterpiece.
As I was reduced to cruising the hyper-powered car like it was a regular, vanilla-flavoured automobile, there were times the road would afford me a burst of speed and power that would hint at the beast’s true nature. At a stretch of road which goes from LAX to Long Beach, I hit an impressive (and totally legal) speed, giving me a glimpse at the true power that lay in my hands via the superbly designed steering wheel.
Probably due to the fact that it is the first “supercar” I’ve driven, I found the little space (1,199mm) to the top of the roofline a bit stifling. But as it’s the Spider (convertible) model, all that could be dealt with at the touch of a button.  It also seems to have been designed for rather slim people, or people slimmer than I am. But all that aside, even something as mundane as a U-turn would provide reason for the MP4-12C Spider to be tagged as “super.”
McLaren initially priced the car at $493,100 and later slashed it to $398,000. The more recently released 12C Spider (pictured) now costs from $441,780 instead of $543,900.
Having recently driven a bevy of powerful sports cars – some of them truly memorable – it’s difficult to imagine a sports car that moves with higher gasp-inducing levels of corner-turning. But the MP4-12C does that, effortlessly. Of course, thanks to a twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V8. Handy if you badly need to use 3 seconds to hit 100 kilometres an hour. This machine’s top speed, after all is more than 320 km/h.
The highlights – and there are many – include the dual-clutch seven-speed automated manual transmission. While in Automatic and Normal settings, its gear changes were as indistinguishable as that of a Benz. The Frank Stephenson-led design team has outdone itself, but the real star feature is its 616 horsepower, which is quite intoxicating indeed. I would gladly take MacLaren’s masterpiece for a spin any day, any time.