From the August 1994 Issue of Car and Driver.
It's flying.
An instant after being launched by a hump in the road at over 100 mph, my view of the sky from the central driving position of the McLaren F1 supercar is pure Cinemascope. The moon could be our destination. In that airborne instant, I believe anything is possible. Forget the moon—with an engine this potent, let's aim for Mars.
When the four-point touchdown comes, it is so velvety that the suspension feels as though it might have been designed for landings. Instantly, the sound of rushing air is shattered by a sharp bark from the engine as the $815,000 McLaren is propelled down the blacktop, accelerating at a rate I've never before experienced. Foot down hard, the straight vanishes. As the speedo needle hits 125 mph, an instant shift—so precise and mechanical it's like pulling back a well-oiled bolt on a rifle—brings fourth gear and another disorienting burst of power that thrusts me forcefully back into the tight-fitting bucket seat.
Still we accelerate. Just 5.4 seconds later, a green up-shift light flashes, appropriately positioned at the 7500-rpm redline on the tach in the center of the instruments. Into fifth gear at 150 mph. Still no lessening of acceleration thrust. The car—squat, stable, a green limpet on the road—shoots forward. Maybe there's space before the corner to grab sixth at 180 mph. Maybe.
No. My courage runs out, the survival instinct takes over. Onto the brakes. I press hard, through the pedal's inert feel before they bite to blunt forward movement.
Less than 30 seconds earlier, I'd waited back up the road for an all-clear signal. Even as the BMW V-12 idled evenly at 900 rpm, I could sense its invincibility. The exhaust note might be subdued, but caress the throttle and the revs soar. I can't resist. Nobody could. This engine responds so instantly it feels as if it doesn't have a flywheel, like a racing engine. The induction bellow is almost ephemeral it can be timed so accurately. The tach needle jerks savagely around the gauge, as if directly connected to the crankshaft.
I'm alone at last, able to contemplate the enormity of a car so swift that it demands an utterly different mental approach. The McLaren forces restraint because there is no way to drive it legally—except on an autobahn or a racetrack—and even begin to probe the full extent of its power and speed. It's an event every time you floor the throttle, producing an irresistible desire to remain behind the wheel, to learn as much as possible about a car so intense in its focus, so single-minded in its approach, that I'm convinced even a top-ranked driver could own it for years and still not explore the outer limits of its staggering performance envelope.
Forget the Jaguar XJ220, Bugatti EB110, Ferrari F40—until now cars deserving to be called rapid. The McLaren blitzes them all. And we have the proof. Confirmed by the Datron optical test gear.
The numbers do the talking: The F1 blasts to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. The Porsche 959, the previous production-car record holder, needed 3.6 ticks of the watch. We saw 100 mph in 6.3 seconds. The Ferrari F40 took two seconds longer. The McLaren hits 150 mph in 12.8 seconds, a smidgen longer than it takes Porsche's latest, greatest 911 to reach 100 mph. Put another way, the McLaren can accelerate as hard at 150 mph as a Ford Taurus can in first gear.
Zero to 200 mph takes 28.0 seconds. What's impressive is the figures show that above 125 mph, the F1 supercar accelerates faster than last year's McLaren MP4/8 Grand Prix race car.
The standing quarter-mile is dispatched in a dazzling 11.1 seconds at 138 mph—about a second quicker and 15 mph faster than any other supercar we've tested.
Suddenly all the usual measures of performance seem mildly laughable. We're talking about a road car that surpasses the performance of most of the racers that will line-up for this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
Top speed? The Fl runs into the 7500-rpm redline in sixth at 221 mph—but it's still accelerating. Gordon Murray, the F1's designer, is convinced that with taller gearing, the car is capable of at least 230 mph.
The motivation behind this speed is a normally aspirated, 6.1-liter V-12, custom designed for the McLaren F1 by BMW Motorsports. It breaks the magic 100-horsepower-per-liter barrier, yet it is not about power alone, although its 618 horses at 7400 rpm might convince you otherwise.
Helped by BMW's variable valve timing, Paul Roche's masterpiece also pumps out a staggering 479 lb-ft of torque between 4000 and 7000 rpm. At only 1500 rpm, it produces 280 lb-ft. Try trickling along at 1300 rpm in sixth gear and the spread of torque is confirmed, the flexibility so astonishing that unless you glance at the tach, you have no idea of the engine rpm. Floor the accelerator and, while there's a trace of engine knock, the acceleration is still assertive.
Such a tractable nature is confirmed by the top-gear acceleration times. Although the engine is only turning 1000 rpm at 30 mph in sixth gear, 50 mph comes up in only 7.0 seconds. From 50 to 70 mph, the engine has picked up enough rpm and torque that the time drops to a mere 3.7 seconds. A Lamborghini Diablo needs 7.5 seconds to cover the same interval in top gear and the F40 needs 12.2 seconds.
Best of all, whatever the right foot does is instantly translated to the rear wheels in a way no turbo engine can emulate. This combination of flexibility and sheer muscle, the perception that the engine is never stressed, together with the howl of a big-capacity V-12 when accelerating and its relative hush at a constant throttle, ensures that this is undoubtedly the finest high-performance production engine in the world.
Problems? Only a reverse gear that's difficult to engage.
You pay a price for this performance at the gas pump, yet the efficiency of the engine, a drag coefficient of just 0.32, and the enormous benefits of a light 2579-pound curb weight mean consumption is reasonable. On a diet of unleaded premium, it still returns 19.3 mpg at highway speeds. Thrash the car and it drops to just 9 mpg.
Crucial to the McLaren's handling excellence are three key factors: the central driving position, the car's diminutive dimensions, and a unique patented suspension system. The advantages of the central driving position are many: the driver can be positioned further forward, his legs slotted between the wheel arches in two long carbon-fiber beams that house the controls. The relationship with a Formula 1 racing car is obvious. There are no offset pedals, and the tiny, almost-vertical steering wheel is positioned so the driver's right hand drops from the rim to the alloy gear lever.
From this position and without the hindrance of an A-pillar, you can see the pavement just five feet in front of the car through the huge windshield. You quickly learn that the compact F1—it's about nine inches narrower and seven inches shorter than a Diablo—can be placed within inches of the apex. And because the driver is sitting in line with the roll center, any impression of body roll—and there is a little—is removed.
Handling? You won't find a finer supercar chassis in the world. There are compromises in building a car to be obedient while driving slowly, yet with the stability required to cope with warp speeds and extreme g-forces, but in the McLaren there are few of the design botches we've accepted as normal in cars of this breed. Yes, the suspension is firm, the tires noisy, and the ride at low speeds and on highways jiggly (especially for the passengers). Yet on interesting back roads—where it counts—the suppleness and composure are remarkable.
There is no ignoring the weight of the steering when parking, but above school-zone speeds, the steering has an almost meaty precision to its feel. Low-speed comers suggest that the steering is low-geared. Wrong. With 2.8 turns lock to lock, the steering is direct and alive, full of feel yet without kickback.
On slow corners, the combination of an exceptional power-to-weight ratio and a driver-oriented chassis allows you to tum into a comer with just a tinge of understeer and then powerslide through it, balancing the car by using both throttle and steering. The power oversteer is so progressive that one does not hesitate to exploit it, despite the consequences of crashing this $815,000 machine.
Ultimately, the McLaren does exactly what it is asked to do. In fast comers, it grips surely and precisely. Unless you have the responses of a Keke Rosberg—one of the F1's early customers—you run out of bravery, as the strength of the g-forces builds up, long before the McLaren loses adhesion or poise.
It is this certain predictability of behavior, the instantaneousness of every dynamic aspect, that makes the F1 so secure to drive, yet because the levels of performance are so high, the driving challenge remains intense and involving.
Only in one area does the no-compromise approach suffer. Finding the right disc-brake pads to cope with slow driving, and dealing with the rigors of 200-mph stops, means the massive, vented four-caliper but non-assisted brakes feel wooden when the pedal is first pressed upon. They need a strong right foot and most drivers would probably appreciate an anti-lock system.
Does the central driving position have any disadvantages? Once you learn the technique of entry, it is—unless you're really bulky—surprisingly easy to get in and out. The secret is to place your bum on the forward edge of the deeply dished left-hand passenger seat (not the right, because of the gear lever) with your legs outside the car. Lean back on both arms and swing your legs into the car, over the hand-brake, and down into the foot well. Then swivel your body across and flop into the driver's seat. Then close the scissors-style doors; you can't pull them shut once you're belted in.
Visibility is brilliant up front, but it suffers to the rear. There are two interior mirrors, but with passengers aboard, they are useless. The exterior mirrors only afford a clue of what's going on behind the car. Because the passengers sit beside and behind the driver, conversation can be one-directional. Heat also spreads from the bulkhead into the twin luggage compartments—each containing customized leather luggage—and to the inner edge of the close-fitting two passenger seats.
McLaren's obsession with weight has obviously paid off. The company has produced the fastest, most-accelerative production car the world has ever seen. That it is also a marvelous driver's car is beyond dispute. However, in building a car capable of charting territory no road machine has ever broached before, McLaren is also asking the driver to stifle the car's performance, at least on the road. That the McLaren is capable of delivering pleasure even when the driver is skimming its potential is a real measure of its achievement.
There are no plans to sell the supercar in the United States because, Gordon Murray says, it would cost $6 million to certify it.
Specifications
SPECIFICATIONS
1994 McLaren F1
VEHICLE TYPE
Mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 1+2-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE AS TESTED (England)
$815,000
ENGINE TYPE
DOHC 48-valve V-12, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 370 in3, 6064 cm3
Power: 618 hp @ 7400 rpm
Torque: 479 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
TRANSMISSION
6-speed manual
CHASSIS
Suspension (F/R): control arms/control arms
Brakes (F/R): 13.1-in vented disc/12.0-in vented disc
Tires: Goodyear F1, F: 235/45ZR-17 R: 315/45ZR-17
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 107.0 in
Length: 168.8 in
Width: 71.6 in
Height: 44.9 in
Luggage space: 10 ft3
Curb weight: 2579 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 3.2 sec
100 mph: 6.3 sec
130 mph: 10.4 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 7.0 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 3.7 sec
1/4 mile: 11.1 sec @ 138 mph
Top speed (redline limited): 221 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 162 ft
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 13 mpg
