Gadgetory

I got a hybrid no it's not a Prius 2014 McLaren p1 of said first of all what is a p1 it's a lot of things mid-engine rear-wheel drive carbon-fiber plug-in hybrid active everything supercar unless a carbon-fiber I mean carbon-fiber everywhere the tub the superstructure of the roof all your body panels in fact there is no engine cover to speak of not one that you lift use tools to take it off when it's time for service otherwise stay out of there and McLaren tells me if you remove even the largest carbon fiber panel on this car the rear clamshell you can still pick it up easily with thumb and forefinger it's all about lightweight super stiffness and high-strength you're gonna think I'm nuts but the most revealing thing I did is not drive this car but wash it when you get your hands all over this body structure it is so foreign I kept thinking of marine structures and fish looking for a bunch of seat controls you have one fore-and-aft that's it directly ahead of me is an all LCD instrument panel not that novel today but I'm surprised how unbusy this one is it doesn't choke you with a whole lot of information and unusual for supercars this one's got a pretty up-to-date comprehensive head unit it's kind of like a baby Tesla in its orientation it is a touchscreen as you can see media choices are pretty comprehensive navigation is pretty digestible and this is very forward-looking for a car like this you got a decent app suite including a web browser also rather Tesla ask and tune in for radio stations streaming and podcasts so unlike some super high-dollar high-performance cars you're not going to be sitting there in the 1990s in terms of cabin tech but now one of the stuff it really matters in this car let's get to our power train control starting back at the wheel you've got your paddle shifters these will move with the wheel by the way they're not stuck on the column which is kind of surprising you can pull this one for a downshift or an upshift but they track together on the wheel or two buttons you'll find in no other car unless you drove a Formula One car DRS is the drag reduction system it's going to feather out the rear wing to reduce drag down a straight when you really want to halt and then you let up on it and it plants you down again we'll try that later and I pass is their acronym for electric boost you can do it on demand or let it happen automatically then I get this car to really come alive you have to first put it in active mode now you're digging into the performance on the left is your handling control normal sport or track on the right as your powertrain control with the same three settings manual button here puts you in manual shift mode of course the arrow button over here puts it in full aerodynamic mode race puts you in the most aggressive mode entirely in fact you have to go through two confirmation screens that tell you you're on your own it gets the car super low it puts the wings super high it sharpens up all your responses and it takes off all of yours ability control and finally the boost button down here is interesting when you hit that you now take the electric motor out of the equation and it only comes on on-demand and that's when you get back to the iPass button the last thing I want to show you are some electric controls up here by the starter button this mo does as you might imagine puts the car in electric-only mode it can go about six or seven miles battery only and of course the plug-in hybrid you can hit this button here to put it in charge mode you've got a door overhead where the charging port is takes about two hours do a full charge offshore power but of course the car will reach in its own battery along the way the way it does that's interesting it does not have brake regeneration it has coasting regeneration McLaren does that so that the brake feel is always the same and never polluted by having a regen apparatus getting in between you and the pads now back here under glass is the secret sauce to our powertrain with the emphasis on power it is a 3.8 liter twin-turbo v8 the engine has 727 horsepower the electric motor adds 176 the v8 engine has 531 pound-feet of torque the electric motor adds 192 totaled up in engine math you've got 903 horsepower 722 pound-feet of torque and all of that goes out through a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission to the rear wheels only interestingly not all wheel drive your results are stunning 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds the p1 weighs just over 3,000 pounds its MPG is 17 for a slightly better 18 mpg II but who cares that's while the turbos are still getting down to business it's a different kind of power more than you've ever known before because of that whole four-30 electric motors have and what McLaren tells you it's actually quite interesting is don't worry about running this car all the way out take it up to the redline every single time between the gear change you actually run it in the mid-range to mid high of your rpm and it's all there wide open on the back straight just get on it the next thing you notice is this incredibly intelligent suspension then we love damping as well as handling an active sleeve are rolled of course going through the turn 11 hairpin there's no bubble anymore than going through a very mild turn okay now get the whole barrel tasty l'épée 100 in a race mode I've done that amazingly on my own I have a very good friend have seen that on cars a little over a million dollars what I want to try in particular is to hit the DRS on the fastback Street and get a feel for what it's like to have that little extreme car and you gotta do a complicated thing here I got a ship with ripe they got his hand a good 10 miles per hour to my previous best neck speed and I'm not even good at this v1 like most MacLaren's reserves its last surprise for the ride home we're dropping in an auto mode and settling back gives you an amazingly liveable streetcar that wouldn't really be fatiguing to commute in if you wish to turn your office colleagues a particular shade of green okay let's say I've convinced you you want to buy a p1 here comes the heartbreak they're all long sold I only made three hundred and seventy five of these guys this is number 106 for example but the p1 really demonstrates extremely well is the existing knowledge of carbon fiber technologies that we've known about but merge that lightness and strength with this stout talk of hybridization and the extreme active Aero management and this is an amazing package it also proves run the cusp of an amazing error or cars driven see neck style standing by now at CNET on cars.com click on the road