0-60mph in a McLaren MP4-12C

By Dan Strong

10th June 2011

Two point nine seconds. In the time it will take you to reach the end of this sentence, the new McLaren MP4-12C rockets past the 0-60mph benchmark.

Exploding off the line, it also shifts gear, and sends the turbocharged engine’s huge reserves of power to the rear axles as the tyres take huge bites out of the tarmac below.

Three seconds later, and only six seconds into our run, we pass 100mph. At peak, our sophisticated test gear shows the car pulls 1.4g under full power – a figure most family cars can’t match on the brakes.

There’s no let-up in the crushing force of acceleration as we touch 140mph. The turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 howls as it nears its 8,000rpm red line, the wind roaring over the screen. Then, with test track space running out, it’s time to grab the gearshift paddles, knock the car down a gear and come to a juddering halt.

You can hear the huge rear wing pop as it swings vertically upwards – acting as an airbrake – then a click as it retracts.

Then silence... my head swimming as I try to make a rational assessment of what’s just happened. Wow! Going from 70mph to a dead stop in 43.4 metres, under half the 96 metres suggested in the Highway Code, the whole episode has taken little more than 30 seconds.

Watch the new McLaren and Ferrari 458 in action, here

In the 15 years I’ve been testing cars, nothing else has bent the laws of physics in the same way.

There are cars that have come close – Caterham’s Superlight R500 is quicker on paper, but once it passes 60mph, its performance fades. Even the mighty Porsche 911 Turbo S can’t quite come close for that gut- wrenching slug of acceleration from 50mph and beyond.

The visceral experience of a flat- out acceleration run in a Ferrari 458, its V8 engine singing and seven-speed gearbox dancing effortlessly through its ratios, stunned me in the same way – but is it faster? Is it better? Sat behind the wheel of the McLaren, I am not sure I have a definitive answer. You’ll have to read what our test team says in its twin test of the two cars in issue 1,170, on sale now.

We are here to do just one thing – to find out how fast the McLaren is. And with the wind behind it, the answer is as emphatic as it gets. For balance, we swing the nose around 180 degrees and head back where we came from.

The MP4-12C doesn’t disappoint, chewing through the ratios in the seven-speed semi- automatic gearbox and delivering a 0-60mph sprint of 3.2 seconds and 0-100mph in 6.5. Job done. But, as our road test shows, the appeal doesn’t end there – it’s a spectacular car to drive, too.

Perhaps most impressive of all is the clinical efficiency of the engine and gearbox. Delivering 592bhp at 7,000rpm and 600Nm of torque, it’s nowhere near as powerful as the 1,000bhp 6.0-litre W12 in the Bugatti Veyron, but in the engine bay of the exquisitely engineered McLaren, it’s just as potent.

.