After years of being lucky enough to own several Porsche cars, I jumped ship temporarily to get my first supercar, the McLaren MP4-12C. The list of Project Cars we have done here at Vivid Racing is long. Porsche is the ultimate car for street and track. Our last car, the 991 Turbo was the epitome of Porsche with all its power, technology, and gadetry inside the vehicle. Having had a Porsche 997.2 GT3RS, this was the closest thing I have had to a track car out of the box. But now, we have our hands on this volcano orange 2012 McLaren MP4-12C. I have never driven one or sat in one before this adventure. The last time I made a sight unseen purchase like this was when I bought the Noble M400. The McLaren 12C coupe was only made in 2012 with about 50 units in 2013. Before the release of the 650S, all the McLaren MP4-12C from 2013-2014 are the spider version. The McLaren 12C is the first fully designed and manufactured by the British company since the incredible McLaren F1. Its carbon fiber tub design with front and rear aluminum structures puts out 616hp from the twin turbo 3.8L engine. Some have posted 0-60 times of 2.8 seconds nad 0-100 times of 6.0 seconds.
So my adventure starts out at McLaren San Francisco where I picked up this 1 owner car from the dealership. Working with their sales consultant Alessandro was a great experience. In the past, I have bought used cars and had them shipped from their origin to Vivid Racing in Gilbert, Arizona. This time, I wanted to road trip it no matter the distance, as long as there were cool roads to drive on. We picked the car up on a Thursday evening. After going through the basics of the car and a short test drive, the deal was done and I was the new owner of this amazing machine. Coincidently, they were also having the release party for the new McLaren 570S there. This car is spaceship like with improved styling and performance. With this special event, McLaren customers came from all over the Bay area to show of their rides including this beautiful P1 pictured below. If you have not seen a P1 in person, absolutely insane. The carbon fiber work is impressive, the view of the engine workings from the rear, and just the pure sexiness of the sound. No wonder it is $2M! Other cars showed up such as the Ferrari 458 Speciale.
We hit the road early in the morning and headed towards Yosemite to get in some cooler temperatures and winding roads. From Yosemite we were going to go through Tioga pass which was closed and ended up exiting the park towards Bakersfield. The next bit of twisty roads for us would be going through Death Valley, just as we did on the 2006 Gumball 3000. Empty roads, fast turns, whoops, and pure fun. Exiting Death Valley we had 1 last stretch for a stop over in Las Vegas to watch the Monster Energy Supercross Race. Having now spent about 12 hours in the seat of the 12C, I can definitely give a good comparison to other cars. After our brief stint in Las Vegas, we headed out on Sunday morning to beat the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight traffic. This 4 hour journey back to Gilbert, Arizona is always fun with tons of twisties and open highway heading through Wickenburg on the 93. In the end, I put 1100 miles on the car in 3 days with about 20 hours in the cockpit. So the question is, how is it?
Suprisingly, the McLaren 12C is very comfortable to drive on long distances. I ran the car in Track engine mode for faster shifts and better throttle response while leaving suspension in normal mode. Even on the roughest bumps on the highway, cruising at 80mph felt very nice. The stock seats have enough adjustment in them and with the telescoping steering wheel, the driving position was perfect. There is a sound generator tube that comes into the cabin to give you more engine noise. When in track mode this is extremely loud. So I put it on the quiet setting to just enjoy the cruise. If you know nothing about McLaren, then you dont know what the Iris or Iris 2 is. Well its the piece of crap nav/radio system that McLaren uses. Its so terrible its not even funny. The car has the Iris 1 with upgraded software, but half the time the nav would not work or glitch up, my iPhone had to be plugged in to the car to listen to music which that was problematic as well. Lastly, the car has 3 AC vents in the cabin. One in the middle and one on each door. With the sun beating down on the car, its warms up quite quick and hard to cool down. The cup holders are awkwardly behind the center console nav unit, so you better have a cooperative co-pilot! In the end, if you look past the daily driveability features and drive the car how it was intended to be driven, its amazing! The roar of the engine behind your head, the handling is go-kart like, and the styling keeps everyone asking questions and looking.
So whats on our list to play with on the car? Several things to make it more stylish, comfortable and powerful. We have collaborated with Vorsteiner to run their aerokit. Rotiform will be doing some custom OEM sized wheels. Armytrix will help us out with their titanium valvetronic exhaust. Our very own VR Tuned will boost up power with a ECU flash.
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