π
2021-08-23 01:01
in Ncars
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Turns out, the Mclaren factory and design center is about 1H out of London and 30mn from Heathrow airport, so this time I had planned to stop there as soon as I landed. Putting aside that United managed to take off 3H late (mechanical issue and no spare plane), I got there 45m for my appointment (nice private tour while the place was mostly shut down during the august holidays which is also the time they use to retool the factory. As a result I didn't get to see the factory, but got a nice tour of their office and private collection of special cars. Thank you to Naveen from Mclaren SF for organizing the tour and Jeff for being my gracious host.
Due to a united plane failure, I arrived a bit late in LHR and 45mn late for my appointment (and do not take cabs from LHR, they are a complete scam, I did because I was late, but it was 80 pounds for a 30mn ride, uber was half that). They nicely waited for me and gave me a tour of the center:
nice welcome gift :)
Artura, the new electric hybrid, I'll take that over a prius :)
We then went through the history of Bruce Mclaren and the company's racing history:
aero was trial and error without wind tunnels back then
James Hunt's car
a nice trio of Mclaren F1s, production car, race car, and mule/test car that ended up racing too
gold for heat reflection
the very first production Mclaren P1
a full scale senna built out of legos, impressive
it weighs a lot more than the original :)
And after about 1h30, the visit was over, thanks a lot to Mclaren for hosting me for the visit:
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