McLaren F1 successor

[Ringleheim]

I think this would be awesome in 1996... I don't doubt that it will be a great machine, but the concept seems dated. Without turbos or electric engines, i wonder how much torque will it make bellow 3000rpm.

Who the hell cares! This thing will sing and he is deliberately going old school with a proper format: ridiculously low weight and a manual shift.

The emphasis is on the experience, not statistics.

This current era of complexity in super cars and flappy-paddle trannies will come and go. Eventually, people will clamor for the good old days of shifting for themselves with greater driver involvement and emotion.

And at least initially, buyers will actually pay extra for the privilege!

[sosic2121]

"Turbos are like watching paint dry"

[Just_a_fan]

The bit where the T.50 and F1 are in shot together beautifully shows how the older car's design hasn't aged at all. The F1 still looks fabulous. Indeed, the T.50 looks like it will age less well than the F1 has. The detail is a bit finicky where the F1 was subdued and classy.

No doubt the F1 won't see which way the T.50 has gone on a track or a fast twisty road, however.

[RZS10]

Usually those hypercars* have some "gimmick", right?

The Jesko Absolut is easily going to be the fastest, and will probably never be beaten.
The normal Jesko/AMG One/Aston Valkyrie will fight for track records.
The Jesko has a silly power output and the Light Speed Transmission as "special" things, the One is based on the F1 engine etc etc

And then there's this ... it has a fan. Oh and the "highest rpm road car engine".

It will not play in the big boy league when it comes to top speed.
It has a measly ~650bhp. (Far from 1:1 power to weight)

The "gimmick" appears to be "pure driving pleasure"? For 2.500.000 € before taxes.

*judging by the raw numbers it hardly qualifies as one these days

[Tim.Wright]

Usually those hypercars* have some "gimmick", right?

The Jesko Absolut is easily going to be the fastest, and will probably never be beaten.
The normal Jesko/AMG One/Aston Valkyrie will fight for track records.
The Jesko has a silly power output and the Light Speed Transmission as "special" things, the One is based on the F1 engine etc etc

And then there's this ... it has a fan. Oh and the "highest rpm road car engine".

It will not play in the big boy league when it comes to top speed.
It has a measly ~650bhp. (Far from 1:1 power to weight)

The "gimmick" appears to be "pure driving pleasure"? For 2.500.000 € before taxes.

*judging by the raw numbers it hardly qualifies as one these days

Some people want gimmicks and stats. Some just want a pure drivers car.

Most of the production has been sold - there's your answer.

[Just_a_fan]

Usually those hypercars* have some "gimmick", right?

The Jesko Absolut is easily going to be the fastest, and will probably never be beaten.
The normal Jesko/AMG One/Aston Valkyrie will fight for track records.
The Jesko has a silly power output and the Light Speed Transmission as "special" things, the One is based on the F1 engine etc etc

And then there's this ... it has a fan. Oh and the "highest rpm road car engine".

It will not play in the big boy league when it comes to top speed.
It has a measly ~650bhp. (Far from 1:1 power to weight)

The "gimmick" appears to be "pure driving pleasure"? For 2.500.000 € before taxes.

*judging by the raw numbers it hardly qualifies as one these days

Have you heard of a car called the McLaren F1? It was built as a pure driving car. No gimmicks. Sold for $1m back in the day. Now makes many, many, millions on the rare occasion they come up for sale.

The T.50 weighs less than a tonne, compared to most hypercars that weigh a quarter of a tonne more (some even more than that). Low weight gives great throttle response (especially with a N/A engine), great steering response, low inertia. That means it'll be engaging to drive on normal roads, not just test / race tracks.

The Jesko Absolut will be looking to be the fastest - great but who ever goes 250mph never mind 300mph? How many Veyrons have ever gone at top speed? The Jesko only gets to do its party trick if you run it on E85. Run it on petrol and it's losing over 300hp. Not going to be so fast then.

[RZS10]

Such cars will always be sold out immediately because it's 100% safe that they will rise in value even before they're delivered so "it's sold out" isn't really an argument speaking for any of those cars (people tried to sell their reservations for the AMG One for double the asking price ... lol).

But yea... apparently the gimmick is "pure ('analogue') drivers car" ... Murray says he wouldn't care about top speed and acceleration figures or laptimes.

Back then the F1 wasn't just a "pure drivers car" was it? ... it was maybe the first "hypercar" even ... I don't know what the other road legal cars in the 1990s had power wise but 627hp was massive - McLaren did many top speed tests, so breaking that record was clearly on the to do list.

What were the other cars from that era? F40, 959, 112i, Diablo, NSX, EB110, XJ220?
The F1 had more power and was faster.

[Just_a_fan]

Back then the F1 wasn't just a "pure drivers car" was it? ... it was maybe the first "hypercar" even ... I don't know what the other road legal cars in the 1990s had power wise but 627hp was massive - McLaren did many top speed tests, so breaking that record was clearly on the to do list.

What were the other cars from that era? F40, 959, 112i, Diablo, NSX, EB110, XJ220?
The F1 had more power and was faster.

It was set out from day 1 as being the best driver's car. Murray didn't set any figures. He went to Honda but they didn't want to play on the engine side. He went to BMW and they said "yes". He didn't ask for a set of numbers, he asked for a concept. Roche, for BMW, came back and said they could do it. Murray was surprised by the engine's performance because it was more than he'd had in his mind as being necessary.

They tested it because they had to. The road homologation requirement is for the brakes to perform repeated stops from a high % of top speed. So they needed to know the speed in order to homologate. Originally Jonathon Palmer did the speed runs at Nardo and got 230mph which was silly high for the time. So they used that. Then, later, they took it out and gave it go "just to see".

Looking at your list of other supercars, none of them, other than maybe the 959, were engineered to anywhere close to the F1's attention to detail. Actually, not even the 959 was. The F40 was old school. The Diablo was basically a reskinned, modernised, Countach. The NSX was great but not even a supercar. The EB110 was brutal engineering at the same time that the F1 was sublime engineering. The XJ220 was a mash up that doesn't compare to the F1.

The F1 was designed to the last nut and bolt. 98%+ was bespoke components. It was designed to have perfect suspension geometry, for example. All of the others were styled and then the hardware fitted inside. The F1 was engineered and then the body wind tunnel tested around the hardware.

The F1 had no peer in its day. None. Indeed, it's debatable whether any other hypercar has been a peer to the F1. Sure, the Veyron is faster but it's not a bespoke item like the F1. Koenigsegg perhaps get closest with their cars because they aren't full of parts bin pieces. But they were/are a series of low number specials with most versions being made in single figures. They took about 25 years to make as many cars as all of the F1s produced.

The F1 had no equal in terms of concept, execution, weight, packaging, performance and it still doesn't.

Name another hypercar that can take 3 people cross continent with a full set of luggage.

[RZS10]

McLaren Speedtail. Gemera can take 4.

I'd say that Paganis are made with a lot of attention to detail, maybe too much - doubt they use many off the shelf parts.
In one of the videos about the T50 Murray even says the F1 was partially thrown together from garbage parts that somehow fitted and that many things didn't work properly or at all and were pretty much useless ...

I will never get used to cars without mirrors - wonder if there will be a paint option to have the dark parts front/side/roof in body colour to bring it closer to the F1 visually.

[Holm86]

I like it, not as extreme and wild looking as any other supercar right now.
But I wish Murray had would stick to the sideintakes the F1 had, I think that would have looked better.

Does anybody know about the inclined axis valves he is talking about?? What's the concept around that??

[Just_a_fan]

The few figures available are impressive. <1000kg wet - that's half a tonne lighter than a 911 and gives it around 700PS/tonne in max attack mode. The P1, which is also half a tonne heavier, has just over 600PS/tonne, for example, so the T.50 is obviously going to be very quick. In the Harry's Garage video, there are figures on the screen that show the T.50 has a much higher power-to-weight than the recent "big 3" hypercars, and well over 100PS/tonne more than the old F1.

Of course, being light it's going to handle well too - I can already hear "it's got kart-like responses" in the reviews. Lightweight with downforce means braking performance should be phenomenal. Non-powered steering in normal driving means feedback should be amazing. It has power steering at parking speeds to help with parking. For those young-uns that have only ever driven PAS-equipped cars, real steering feel is eye opening. It's the size of a 911 so it's compact which should make for nimble handling and real-world usability. None of those flinches as you pass a car on a narrow road .

The engine is quite something. It looks like a 1960s V12, not a modern unit. The rate it adds revs is silly. Idle to max revs in half a second - 24000 rpm/second rev rise.

I can't help think that this is what a hypercar should be - none of the overweight tanks requiring big power figures to cover for their excessive mass. It's light, compact, sufficiently powerful, properly packaged. The looks, of course, are personal. I don't prefer it over the F1 but it compared to the "big 3"? Yes please!

[Just_a_fan]

I will never get used to cars without mirrors - wonder if there will be a paint option to have the dark parts front/side/roof in body colour to bring it closer to the F1 visually.

The mirrors would have to be on top of the wheel arch to meet regulatory requirements. That would look silly.

The roof is black because it's unpainted carbon according to Murray. No doubt if you stump up the £2.5+ to buy one they'll paint the roof any colour you like.

[Andres125sx]

just Wow

[sosic2121]

Does anybody know about the inclined axis valves he is talking about?? What's the concept around that??

Could it be that normally (intake) valve stems are parallel, but not in this engine?

[Holm86]

Does anybody know about the inclined axis valves he is talking about?? What's the concept around that??

Could it be that normally (intake) valve stems are parallel, but not in this engine?

I don't know, it's the first time I hear the terminology of inclined axis valves