McLaren Has Sort Of Revealed Its 'P14' 650S Successor

Say hello to the new 650S-replacing P14! Or part of it, at least...

04 Jan 2017

Here it is, the new, 650S-replacing P14. No, really! It’s just that McLaren has only revealed the new carbonfibre Monocage II that’ll be at the core of the car, as a sort of engineering porn teaser.

But that’s fine - thanks to all the spy shots floating around the Interweb we have a rough idea of what the rest of it will look like, plus McLaren has revealed a handful of juicy details about this development of Monocage II to whet our appetite.

It offers a lower centre of gravity, larger openings for better access and visibility, and it’s even ever so slightly lighter than the tub it succeeds. It contributes to the first car in the second generation of McLaren’s ‘Sport Series’ being 18kg lighter than the 650S, with a dry weight of 1283kg. Oh, and if you want to show off that lovely carbon work to your mates, there’ll be an option to leave the A-pillars in bare CF. An option you should tick, obviously.

Full details on McLaren’s as yet unnamed 650S replacement (P14 is just a codename) will arrive in March.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

Apparently, Carbon fibre is not a good as conductor as I previously presumed. Look down for the explanation.

Carbon fibre is made out of long strands of carbon fullerenes. These can conduct electricity as each Carbon is only bonded 3 times, leaving one delocalised electron. However, for this electron to jump from the valence band to the conduction band, it needs a lot of energy: i.e. It needs to be hot. Therefor, Carbon fibre is a semiconductor, so not a good conductor unless hot or doped with a group 3 or group 5 element. Sorry for ruling your fun, I’ll give you time to delete your comment so you don’t look like an idiot ;)

Wait, visibility and accessability, in a McLaren! I’m listening.

cough cough 570GT cough cough

You could say it’s a shell of its former self!

#WorstPunof2017

The year is young, there will be worse I guarantee.

McLaren CEO be like

McLaren CEO: it won’t be a 650s successor because it is a whole new car. Still uses the same 3.8 litre v8, slightly different carbon monocoque and looks the exact same as every other car in the range