Every Black Friday thousands of consumers stand outside just to get a flat screen at a $200 discount off the regular price. This holiday season, 375 people have stood outside the lonely and virtual McLaren sales lot, and promised to take order on one of their magnificent P1’s.
The McLaren P1 may not exactly be road legal, but its hybrid powertrain may seem practical at first, until you consider its 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V8 that is packing around 737 horsepower on its own, and 916 with the help of its electric motor.
As per the McLaren way, the design was guided by its purpose, which is to go very fast in a controlled manner, and not let much of anything get in the way of that, including the air. The P1 features a Drag Reduction System that enables it to sprint 0-60 in less that 3-seconds, and if you can manage to keep your foot off the accelerator, you can actually travel a couple miles on just its electric motor.
The problem for us average folks, is despite your gas savings, owners still need to get past its initiation fee of $1.5 million (not including taxes) to save one in their name. The economic slump in Europe was partially to blame for the slow sale of the 375 supercars.
None-the-less, McLaren received a fair boost from the McLaren F1 that was sold at Pebble beach this August for the record price of $8.47 million. It then found another rush of interest when it bested the mighty Nurburgring track in less than seven minutes.
At this point, McLaren is still taking names to put on a ‘first-come first-serve’ waiting list, just in case any of the 50 original buyers back out at the last minute. To date, only 12 cars have been complete, and the majority of those have been special orders, meaning that they had a bunch of extra stuff, that brought the final price closer to the $2 million mark.
I guess we’ll have to find something else to put on our holiday wishlist.
About Dr. Eric J. Leech
Eric has written for over a decade. Then one day he created Urbasm.com, a site for every guy.
About Dr. Eric J. Leech