One thing that strikes me about this car is how much the front end looks like a Porsche Carrera GT. Not that it's a bad car to emulate; maybe it's the curve of the headlights and hood that throw me. I'm also not sure how I feel about the yawning air intake wings on below the front fender.
The butterfly doors like on a Lamborghini are very cool too. They were a feature of the McLaren-Mercedes SLR also. The MP4-12C also shares similar design features with both the front of the upcoming Ferrari 458 and the rear of that car.
By far my favorite part of the car design? The way the exhaust exits in the upper part of the car's tail... for a mid-engine supercar this means a more direct route for the exhaust to exit, reducing extra piping weight and freeing up the underbelly for suspension or drivetrain or whatever else you want to do. That's good design - plus it looks unique. Now if only McLaren would do something about the car's terrible name.
Related reading: Buzz Beast does a MUCH better job of this type of post, as you can see in their Lexus LF-A post or their Audi R8 Spyder post. Both of those cars awesome, although I'm especially intrigued by the Lexus LF-A because I wonder how they are going to position it in the context of the hypercompetitive supercar landscape.
ReplyDeleteDid the McLaren F1 have a center single seat for the driver?
ReplyDeleteYes, it had a 1 + 2 seating layout with the driver in a single center seat and two passenger seats flanking behind it.
ReplyDeleteAlso on the subject of car design, BusinessWeek has a list up of the 50 Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years which is pretty entertaining
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