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New McLaren P11 supercar (2010): the spy photos
By
Tim Pollard
Spyshots
13 October 2008 14:00
So how fast will the McLaren P11 be?
How long is a piece of string? With the sort of firepower being shoehorned into the P11’s engine bay (Merc-source V8, upwards of 500bhp) and a flyweight construction (bank on around 1200kg), it’s not difficult to see that the baby McLaren will be scintillatingly quick.
We’re in the realms of pure speculation here, but we’d be very surprised if the P11 didn’t bust through the 200mph barrier and hit 60mph in less than 4.0sec.
Eye witnesses who’ve seen engineering mules masquerading as a Ferrari 360 Modena and Ultima on test at Surrey’s Dunsfold circuit report swift progress and a rifle-quick gearchange. We just don’t know about the transmission of the P11 at this stage, but some kind of F1-inspired semi-auto would make sense.
And what about that P11 name?
McLaren uses P codenames, you see. The SLR is internally dubbed P7 and Mercedes and McLaren considered three more projects that were all aborted a few years ago: they would have have sired a GT sports car (P8), another supercar (P9) and an SLR successor (P10).
None of them could muster a solid enough business case, however, so McLaren decided to go it alone with the P11. And that’s the car you see here.
We can hardly wait…
