Iconic McLaren Style as conceived by Frank Stephenson
Discussion
Interesting reading. It tells a lot about DNA of McLaren style, which is perfectly coupled with the performance oriented engineering.
https://jalopnik.com/legendary-designer-frank-step...
The decision was, “Let’s make the design different, and not generic, but just not anything standing out like a Versace suit.” So let’s take the quiet route, let’s make it subdued. Obviously, it has to look like a performance car and all that. Let’s don’t push too many buttons from the design side. So that’s what the MP4-12C came out to be. It was almost like, well I wouldn’t call it a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but it wasn’t from a visual point as strong as it could have been.
But the proof was in the pudding that the car did alright from the design side, because it hasn’t aged too much. People are still saying it’s a good looking car, so that feels good. But, when we had to go on from the 12C and really establish McLaren’s design language and engineering tech, the P1 was going to be the company’s calling card.
We designed it for performance, and that’s what it looks like. And basically the only way to get that design language was to minimize.
What I mean by minimizing is, you know, you look at a Ferrari and you see a lot of Italian sensual surfacing kind of thing. Porsche is also very Germanic. Lamborghini is very outlandish, almost origami type. But McLaren was in that phase of how do we define our design language. So the obvious way was how do you design a race car? You take away rather than add on. What we decided to do was take the hard points on the platform, on the chassis. Those hard points where the suspension mounts are, where your vision angles are established, your bumper heights and headlight heights. Put everything where it needs to be and can’t move, and then use those points in space, and what we kind of did was throw a bedsheet over that package and let it settle. So where the bedsheet settled meant we didn’t have to have much material there. So basically what we did was come up with this language we called shrinkwrapping, where instead of adding surface to make it beautiful or whatever, sensual, we sucked the air out of the car.
As much as we could, we wanted to make the back of the car look like a racing car, because a lot of the mechanicals were pretty nice to look at. So the shape of it kind of evolved from thinking let’s design a racecar for the road with a license plate on it. That’s kind of how the P1 emerged.
I can remember the day that we showed it to Ron, and it was under one of those silk covers. After a year, he was ready to see it. We pulled it off and his jaw dropped. He was like, “What the hell is this? Where’s the front of the car and where’s the back?” And I’m like “Uh, Ron, this is like haute couture. And you need the shock factor when you have a hypercar. If it’s Superman, you want it to look like Superman, not like Clark Kent.” So he didn’t get it, he said “You’ve been working on this for a year and this is all you could come up with?” Yeah, well, Ron, it’s supposed to look a little weird, because it’s a hypercar. It’s got a unique look, you can’t mistake it for anything else out there. Finally he said, “Alright, well if you guys think so. But remember, I can always kill it, I can pull the plug right here and now. And if this car doesn’t sell, you’re out of here!”
...
But if it’s a car that isn’t my daily driver, it would probably be not the 765LT, but the 720S. Because the 765LT if you look at it, man, they didn’t know where to stop on that car! If you look at it, you go what the heck? Stop! But they were like, “No, I’ve got another thing I want to put on it.” The 720S came out very pure, it’s very drivable, it’s comfortable, it does everything really well. You could, theoretically, if you wanted to, use it as a daily driver, but you know you probably wouldn’t. But it’s got that look that I think will keep it looking modern for years to come.
If you get a good one, that is. If you get one that doesn’t fall apart on you. McLaren has this thing about building cars pretty quickly. You need to double check before it gets out of the factory. They are great cars when they’re assembled during the week and not on a Monday or Friday, you get a good one. Then you’re in luck.
BB: So the hot tip for 720S buyers is to look at the build date?
Yeah, don’t grab a Friday car. With COVID, I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
https://jalopnik.com/legendary-designer-frank-step...
The decision was, “Let’s make the design different, and not generic, but just not anything standing out like a Versace suit.” So let’s take the quiet route, let’s make it subdued. Obviously, it has to look like a performance car and all that. Let’s don’t push too many buttons from the design side. So that’s what the MP4-12C came out to be. It was almost like, well I wouldn’t call it a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but it wasn’t from a visual point as strong as it could have been.
But the proof was in the pudding that the car did alright from the design side, because it hasn’t aged too much. People are still saying it’s a good looking car, so that feels good. But, when we had to go on from the 12C and really establish McLaren’s design language and engineering tech, the P1 was going to be the company’s calling card.
We designed it for performance, and that’s what it looks like. And basically the only way to get that design language was to minimize.
What I mean by minimizing is, you know, you look at a Ferrari and you see a lot of Italian sensual surfacing kind of thing. Porsche is also very Germanic. Lamborghini is very outlandish, almost origami type. But McLaren was in that phase of how do we define our design language. So the obvious way was how do you design a race car? You take away rather than add on. What we decided to do was take the hard points on the platform, on the chassis. Those hard points where the suspension mounts are, where your vision angles are established, your bumper heights and headlight heights. Put everything where it needs to be and can’t move, and then use those points in space, and what we kind of did was throw a bedsheet over that package and let it settle. So where the bedsheet settled meant we didn’t have to have much material there. So basically what we did was come up with this language we called shrinkwrapping, where instead of adding surface to make it beautiful or whatever, sensual, we sucked the air out of the car.
As much as we could, we wanted to make the back of the car look like a racing car, because a lot of the mechanicals were pretty nice to look at. So the shape of it kind of evolved from thinking let’s design a racecar for the road with a license plate on it. That’s kind of how the P1 emerged.
I can remember the day that we showed it to Ron, and it was under one of those silk covers. After a year, he was ready to see it. We pulled it off and his jaw dropped. He was like, “What the hell is this? Where’s the front of the car and where’s the back?” And I’m like “Uh, Ron, this is like haute couture. And you need the shock factor when you have a hypercar. If it’s Superman, you want it to look like Superman, not like Clark Kent.” So he didn’t get it, he said “You’ve been working on this for a year and this is all you could come up with?” Yeah, well, Ron, it’s supposed to look a little weird, because it’s a hypercar. It’s got a unique look, you can’t mistake it for anything else out there. Finally he said, “Alright, well if you guys think so. But remember, I can always kill it, I can pull the plug right here and now. And if this car doesn’t sell, you’re out of here!”
...
But if it’s a car that isn’t my daily driver, it would probably be not the 765LT, but the 720S. Because the 765LT if you look at it, man, they didn’t know where to stop on that car! If you look at it, you go what the heck? Stop! But they were like, “No, I’ve got another thing I want to put on it.” The 720S came out very pure, it’s very drivable, it’s comfortable, it does everything really well. You could, theoretically, if you wanted to, use it as a daily driver, but you know you probably wouldn’t. But it’s got that look that I think will keep it looking modern for years to come.
If you get a good one, that is. If you get one that doesn’t fall apart on you. McLaren has this thing about building cars pretty quickly. You need to double check before it gets out of the factory. They are great cars when they’re assembled during the week and not on a Monday or Friday, you get a good one. Then you’re in luck.
BB: So the hot tip for 720S buyers is to look at the build date?
Yeah, don’t grab a Friday car. With COVID, I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Edited by RBT0 on Thursday 5th November 22:04
I may sound a fan boy, but honestly Design/Style wise atm nothing excites me more than latest McLarens (and obviously P1).
Ferrari seems lost, Lambo usual overly aggressive look "too much", Porsche...well as Frank said "German", to me bit boring and ordinary.
Aston Valkyrie, Koenigsegg and Bugatti Bolide would be other great benchmark for McLaren.
Ferrari seems lost, Lambo usual overly aggressive look "too much", Porsche...well as Frank said "German", to me bit boring and ordinary.
Aston Valkyrie, Koenigsegg and Bugatti Bolide would be other great benchmark for McLaren.
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