McLaren 765LT Reviews

Polish car nut Jacek Mazur has snubbed the old warning “don’t touch what you can’t afford” by building his own backyard version of the famed – and rare -- McLaren F1 supercar.The amateur mechanic has built himself an impressive likeness to the highly collectible machine, which has increased in value tenfold in the 22 years since its introduction.“The McLaren was such a great car that when I saw it the first time I decided to build it,” Jacek says in a video covering his creation (below).Using just scrap and spare parts, the 48 year old spent eight years and just zl100,000 ($36,500) to build his replica, 250 times less than the US$8.47 million ($9.5 million) commanded by a genuine example at a US auction earlier this year.“I have been creating cars for the past 20 years now. I have built many types of cars previously, including a Porsche 911 and a Lamborghini Countach,” he says.Jacek is a health and safety advisor by trade, but still managed to construct his replica’s tubular chassis from scratch, along with expanding on the F1’s unique three-seat cabin layout.“The most difficult part of the building process was the construction of the frame and the positioning of the driver’s seat. I managed to squeeze in a fourth seat that I called the ‘Hammond-seat’.”The fourth seat is crammed behind the driver’s seat, leaving enough room for a passenger of similar staure to the pint-sized Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond.While Jacek chose not to use the F1’s 486kW 6.1-litre BMW V12 and, his replica’s Audi V8 engine and Mercedes brakes maintain some performance pedigree.While it may not be capable of the real McLaren’s record-breaking 386.5km/h top speed, Jacek claims the fruit of his labours will hit a credible 320km/h.“Many people will literally stop and stare and take a proper look at it. They will ask what model the car is. Even if it’s just a replica, it looks like the real deal.”On that basis, those who missed out on buying one of the already sold-out new McLaren P1 or LaFerrari supercars might be tempted to get onto Jacek…This reporter is on Twitter: @Mal_Flynn 

McLaren have let their hybrid P1 stretch its legs on a fast lap of the Nurburgring. Not fast enough, it seems, to have beaten the 6:57 record set by the Porsche 918 Spyder. But McLaren are claiming to have done the circuit in under 7 minutes -- they're just not giving us the details on how much under. And that suggests they've still got an eye on the Porsche's record (as does the LaFerrari). What McLaren does give us instead is a salute to the Nurburgring itself, with a video that asks -- and then answers -- the question of why it's so important to keep tackling what's acknowledged as the world's most difficult track, known as the Green Hell. Helming the P1 for the 20.8km lap is McLaren test driver Chris Goodwin, who in an accompanying statement talks us through some of the challenges of what he describes as a "rollercoaster from hell" on which he made a gear change on average every six seconds. "The acceleration from the Aremberg right hander down the Fuchsröhre is absolutely amazing. I have only experienced acceleration like this before in a Formula 1 car," Goodwin says. "This downhill snaking section of the track is taken flat, using DRS, shifting gear all the way down to the base of the valley, and the compression that follows applies the maximum vertical g-forces to the car. The forces really load the tyres, chassis and wing, but it is taken with only a slight lift of the throttle. "The numerous jumps that make the Nordschleife famous are an even bigger challenge than normal with the massive speeds we approach them. Flugplatz and Pflanzgarten are both taken at very high speed... "Through Bergwerk (the corner at which Niki Lauda had his infamous accident in the 1976 German GP), you have to turn in late in order to carry as much speed as you can onto the following straight without running wide. That is a quick section, and one that feels fantastic when you get it just right. "Stability is just as important as ultimate grip, and some of the bumpiest sections of the track are also the fastest. The relentless climb towards the Karussell is dealt with in a few spectacular moments ... at the top of the hill is one of the fastest corners on the lap, with a approach speed around 300km/h, The track is really bumpy here, but the corner is dispatched with a light dab of the brakes in fifth gear. "Cornering forces peak as the McLaren P1 drops onto the banked concrete surface at the Karussell, and swings round more than 180 degrees -- with the driver subjected to lateral g-forces of 3.9g -- before the final stages and sprint to the finish." They didn't have Goodwin add his commentary to the soundtrack, possibly because they didn't want to have anything interfere with the glorious noise as the P1 lets rip from its 673kW/978Nm combination of a 3.8-litre twin turbo V8 and an electric motor -- a marriage McLaren claims gets the car to 100km/h in just 2.8 seconds, 200km/h in 6.8 seconds and 300km/h in 16.5 seconds. But the official Nurburgring time, we'll still have to wait for. Watch the McLaren P1 hypercar going for a quick spin around the Nurburgring on our desktop site. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

British supercar maker McLaren is riding a wave of big models, with the 12C and 12C Spider already out, the P1 just being launched -- and reportedly already sold out -- and the 3.8-litre V8-powered P13 sportscar in the works to face off against the Porsche 911.But now McLaren's design boss has suggested a hot hatch could be on the cards for the Woking line-up. Speaking with Dutch magazine Autovisie, head designer Frank Stephenson said he can invision something similar to the Volkswagen Golf."I see a car like the VW Golf for 30 to 40,000 EUR ($43,000-$58,000, however the Golf GTI sells here from $41,490), but for McLaren with a carbon fiber monocoque, to happen in the future," is reported as telling the magazine.And while he's designed the 12C and P1 for his current house -- and the F430 for Ferrari -- Stephenson's experience certainly doesn't stop at supercars. He also penned the BMW X5, Mini Cooper, Fiat 500 and Alfa Romeo Mi-To so a hot hatch could be a familiar drawing board snack for him.Stephenson also reportedly sledged Audi in the Autovise story, saying the German brand's design broth was spoilt by having too many chefs. "Groups are like a large oil tankers, it takes a lot of time to change the course. Too many people with different ideas that you have to convince, and designs that are toned too far," he said.This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott 

McLaren has collaborated with the creators of the upcoming driving simulator Forza Motorsport 5, to create a flipbook-style animation from a series of still images strung around the edge of a race circuit. Titled ‘FilmSpeed’, the footage was appropriately captured from the back of a McLaren MP4-12C supercar. It's hard to imagine a more impractical medium for highlighting the in-game action from Forza 5, but the result is certainly impressive.  The frames featuring the MP4-12C's big brother P1 supercar were attached to hundreds of carefully-spaced aluminium boards, and the MP4-12C was driven by stunt driver Tanner Foust at meticulously controlled speeds of up to 193km/h. The resulting zoetrope-effect gives an Alice in Wonderland-like view of Forza 5' gameplay, with the P1 lapping a virtual race circuit.    Watch the video here.       

McLaren highlights former world champion James Hunt in this fourth episode of McLaren's Tooned 50 series, looking back at the history of the British race team and supercar manufacturer as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013.   Watch the video here.

McLaren highlights former world champion Emerson Fittipaldi in this third episode of McLaren's Tooned 50 series, looking back at the history of the British race team and supercar manufacturer as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013.   Watch the video here.  

McLaren gives a look at how the organisation's founder Bruce McLaren started off in this second episode of McLaren's Tooned 50 series, looking back at the history of the British race team and supercar manufacturer as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013.   Watch the video here.  

McLaren's F1 drivers Jenson Button and Sergio Perez star in this first episode of McLaren's Tooned 50 series, looking back at the history of the British race team and supercar manufacturer as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013.    Watch the video here.  

Hybrids, for a long time, were synonymous with everything that isn't fun about driving--commutes, traffic, gas mileage, and penny pinching. Lately, they've taken on a new high-performance sheen, perhaps nowhere as much so as at Ferrari.The LaFerrari hypercar is, put simply, obscene in its perversion of hybrid technology. We love it. It's a 708kW, no-all-electric-mode, sub-three-second-to-100km/h, more than 350-km/h-top-speed, this-clearly-isn't-about-saving-the-planet hybrid. But don't call it an electric car, or Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo might get a bit cross with you.Why? According to Bloomberg, di Montezemolo doesn't believe in electric cars. Presumably, that means he finds them unsuitable to Ferrari's mission of exclusive performance rather than merely unsuitable for reality.With examples like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive out setting sub-8-minute Nordschleife laps, it's clear EVs can be made quick, if not quite truly fast, but then you'd expect it of a 560kW/1000Nm supercar, whatever fuel delivers that power. Unfortunately, the maximum range of the (roughly) US$550,000 SLS AMG Electric Drive is just 250km even with much more temperate use, and it takes about 20 hours to charge without the optional quick charger. Perhaps that's what di Montezemolo is talking about.Ferrari, meanwhile, is already joined at the upper end of the exotic hybrid segment with the McLaren P1 knocking out similar acceleration and top speed figures, despite sporting just 673kW, and the Porsche 918 Spyder making do with 653kW yet still achieving similar performance.Whose machine will reign supreme? Allez hybrids!www.motorauthority.com 

Following the announcement last May that Honda was making a return to Formula One as an engine supplier, initially to the McLaren team for the 2015 season, news immediately broke that the two might partner on development of one of McLaren’s future road cars.This was shot down only days later, when an insider stated that Honda’s renewed alliance with McLaren in F1 was not expected to have any impact on McLaren’s road car business.That may be true for McLaren’s current crop of road cars, which includes the 12C, P1 and upcoming P13 (name still pending) but that doesn’t mean we won’t see any collaboration between the two in the future. “Our road car strategy at the moment has no other automotive partner and Honda would be a good place to collaborate,” McLaren’s F1 team principal Martin Whitmarsh said to Autocar. “Nothing’s fixed, but we’re open to that and so are they.”Given McLaren’s size, it’s logical for the company to continue to outsource components such as engines and transmissions from outside suppliers. The current crop of McLaren cars, for instance, all get their engines from Ricardo while their transmissions are sourced from Graziano.Perhaps for the next generation of McLaren cars, we may see engines and other hardware sourced from Honda. If the two companies are successful in F1, we’re sure both will be eager to capitalise on that success in the world of road cars.Importantly, any deal is likely to work both ways, so we may see some of the McLaren-shared hardware featured in future Hondas like the upcoming NSX.www.motorauthority.com