The two-seater MP4-12C doesn’t go on sale until early 2011, when it'll wade into what McLaren Automotive calls the ‘core sports car market’ spanning from £125,000-£175,000. Expect a pricetag around £160,000, pitching it a notch above Ferrari’s new 458 Italia.

Why so expensive? Blame the extensive – and expensive – use of carbonfibre, a technology McLaren first introduced to roadcarkind in 1993’s F1. McLaren calls the skeleton of the MP4-12C the Carbon MonoCell, an unusually light one-piece structure where most supercars normally use assembled composite architectures. Although pricey, it's developed using a much quicker, cheaper production method than the McMerc SLR's tub, and it's clothed in aluminium and SMC plastic body panels.

It’s a 3.8-litre 90-degree V8 mounted amidships and producing ‘around 600bhp and 443lb ft’. ‘It delivers the highest horsepower to CO2 ratio of any car on the market today with an internal combustion engines – and that includes petrol and diesel hybrids,’ boasts Antony Sheriff, MD of McLaren Automotive. Expect a CO2 output somewhere just south of 300g/km.

Contrary to earlier speculation, this is McLaren’s own V8, dubbed M838T and breathed on by twin turbos and driving the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox (no manual is available). The V8 has a dry sump and a flat-plane crank like a race engine, to lower the centre of gravity and allow a higher rev limit of 8500rpm.

Every single component of the MP4-12C is unique, vows McLaren. Not a single switch or part is pilfered from a rival’s parts bin.

McLaren claims that 80% of the MP4-12C's torque is available below 2000rpm, so it'll be damned quick. Actual performance figures aren’t available yet, but we hear the 0-60mph time will be in the three-point-something-second bracket and it seems a dead cert that the MP4-12C will top 200mph with some ease.


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