2011 McLaren MP4-12c Review

Welcome back to the Review as told by the Bobbo. Last week, I flew to Italy and reviewed the Ferrari 458 Italia, and basically fell in love with it all over again and I started to truly realize how great of a car it truly was. Well now I am here in England reviewing the direct rival to the Ferrari 458 Italia, and I'm talking about this.




The McLaren MP4-12c is a supercar produced by McLaren automotives, the same people that brought us the legendary McLaren F1, which for 8 years stood as the fastest production car in the world, and still stands today as the fastest naturally aspirated car in the world. Now the MP4 is deemed the successor to the F1 as it is only the 2nd car McLaren ever made by themselves, but it is the 4th car they have been apart of due to their relationship with Mercedes-Benz, which produced the SLR McLaren and the SLR Stirling Moss.

Now the MP4 is not a 6 Liter V12 producing 627 horsepower, its a 3.8L Twin Turbo V8, the Anti Roll bars don't exist, instead of that it has a computer where you can set how soft or how stiff you want the settings, that is also the same for the springs and dampers. The car costs $220,000, 20k cheaper than its direct rival 458, however, both cars are available at Level 34. Anyway, here are the "Stats" and "Good Stuff" when looking at it on the show room floor.





Compared to the 458, the car basically loses in nearly every stat,the 458 has a better speed, braking, handling and launch. The McLaren only has better acceleration, and its only by 0.3 of a point. So I bought the car(already had 1) and took it onto Silverstone, and to say I liked it is to say that a Ford fan loves Holden(watching an Aussie V8 race as I typed this), here is what I will be tackling throughout this review.





The car had nice size tires already, but you would think I was driving the car with Smart Car tires, the car would NOT turn or anything, couldn't keep traction, the front end wouldn't respond for a turn, and when it did, the back end would slide around, yeah I was having fun driving, but I was going so slow. So, I took the car into the paddock and decided to bolt on these upgrades to make the car driveable.





I bolted on the Sport Tires over the Street Tires with Full Widths. It not only made the car lighter, but it made the car have better lateral G's when equipped with the full aero and it made the car much more stable. So to see the improved stats, here are the "Bobbo-fied" Stats and Good Stuff of the car.





Even tho I improved the stats dramatically, the car STILL only beats the 458 in the acceleration stat. I threw a basic tune from the same exact calculator that I did the 458 tune on(also my Lotus and Rally car). Took the car onto my 5 test tracks, which I will have an announcement about in the final paragraph. And, here are the laptimes of the McLaren MP4-12c.





So in Forza 4, 17 PI points that the McLaren MP4-12c has over the 458 Italia hurts it in almost every single way, it suffered on the handling tracks the most due to the fact that I couldn't really throw the car into the corner and stick like I did with the 458. So, in conclusion, if I could have a car in the game for about $250,000 and those were my only 2 options and you wanted to compete, I would tell you 10 out of 10 times to go with the Ferrari 458 Italia, I know 17 PI points are NOT alot, but the 458 uses them 17 PI points to its advantage where I can throw slicks and widths on it to make it much better than the McLaren MP4-12c.





So as I said above, every 5-8 reviews I like to change up the tracks a little bit by dropping 1 of the tracks, so in the vote above, I will put up my 5 tracks, and I want all of you to please vote. Also when you vote say which track you dropped and also if you don't mind tell me which track to add(please be sensible, full courses only, no Nurburgring Nords or Fujimi Kaido).

Well that is it for this review, thanks for reading, stay tuned next week as I officially have my first interview with an MSM member about a community car I review, I was originally suppose to do this with Trash, but since he left I could not drive the car(due to me not wanting to buy the Ultima for that review) so tune in next week as MSM Co-Leader RetPetty brings along his Lamborghini Miura concept and he lets me(against his will) thrash the cars around the track. Stay tuned for that

Edit: I have decided that I will re-do the track list myself due to people only voting for a certain track because "they don't like it" or what not, so this will be the following test tracks for my review starting next week.

Nice review, although i'm not really a supercar person, i really like the MP4-12c.

YOU MADE THAT THING COMPETITIVE

You deserve a medal. Honestly.

It's at the bottom of most lists, but it didn't get slaughtered, which was a shock.

Good review though. If I could offer a bit on constructive criticism, a lot of the paragraph-opening sentences are run-ons which kind of makes it hard to read at times.

Forza 4 Nerfed the MP4

BlmThug wrote:Forza 4 Nerfed the MP4

I don't think its nerfed, I think the PI is just wrong, if I were T10, I would have made the car 648-651 just because it is a direct rival to the 458 you should make it a direct rival in PI, also I would make both cars b/w 230-235k so then you would have a true choice

I just watched a amazing video about the Mclaren factory.


Very good watch, it's amazing how quiet the factory is! and virtually no air tools!

I bought this car a week ago based on non other than......a Top Gear suggestion AND the fact that this car is truly a one-of-a-kind supercar for multiple reasons. One apparently me and Bobbo disagree on (as usual) But I hav to give Bobbo some props for doing a Stellar job on this review and hope to see many more like this

Tango