Maisto McLaren F1
This car is the King. This car is to performance what Leonardo da Vinci was to Renaissance art; what Wayne Gretzky is to hockey. Elvis and the Beatles rolled into one.
During the supercar boom of the late 1980s and early '90s a number of companies decided to cash in on the competitive craze by building ever-faster, ever-wilder machines. Most of them produced a few and then discontinued the extreme models -- Jaguar's XJ220, Porsche's 959, Ferrari's F40. A number of companies showed cars, maybe even built a few, and then ceased producing altogether -- Bugatti, Cizeta, Vector. Those last three had, or hired, some respectable talent, but none had the cash reserves to survive when the bottom dropped out of the supercar market.
But there was a maker, new to the market, who did. This was McLaren Cars, Ltd, who has been building race cars, real race cars, for decades. Bruce McLaren's company hails back at least to the glory days of Can-Am racing in the '60s and '70s, taking on Chevron, March, Lola, and, yes, Ferrari and Porsche. They didn't always win, but they didn't always lose, either. They were professionals.
So when the market looked ripe -- when prices on XJ220s, F40s, and 959s started at $200,000 and spiraled upward toward seven digits -- McLaren announced that they would build their own supercar. One that would sell for a million dollars.
If you know about racing, you'll know that many car builders don't build their own engines. Sure, the big companies do: Ferrari, Porsche, etc. But historically there have been many more cars built around engines from another supplier: Cosworth, Offenhauser, Ford, or Chevy, to name a few.
For their supercar, McLaren chose BMW. BMW built them a V12 engine worthy of a million-dollar car. Without benefit of turbochargers, this 6.1 liter beast churns out 627hp, slightly over 100 hp per liter. Sure, the Bugatti EB110 and Ferrari F40 have much higher specific output figures, which are impressive feats of engineering. But top speed doesn't care how many liters or cylinders you use -- it comes down to the actual power and torque produced, and this BMW mill has those numbers in spades.
McLaren's Gordon Murray had plenty of experience designing cars to break the 200-mph mark. They all had the driver in the center, being racing cars with no need of passenger seating. This new car, called the F1 (presumably a reference to Formula 1 racing), also had the driver in the center as a logical, optimal location. (This also meant there was no worry about left-hand drive British models versus right-hand drive for most of the world.) But, being a car to be driven on the road, he added passenger seats. Two of them, set back, one on each side of the driver! To my knowledge, this three-across, driver-centered layout is unique in automotive history.
The rest of the car is pretty much standard racing practice: composite monocoque body, forward-lifting doors, enormous cross-drilled brake discs, the usual. A few things were added to make it street legal: license plate brackets, turn signals, that sort of thing.
Another noticeable feature of the McLaren F1 is its air intake. In what became standard practice for GT1 cars, the engine gulps its air from a scoop on the roof, in the highly pressurized boundary layer. This feeds it a much denser intake charge than side-mounted intakes found on most supercars. The apparent compromise involving rear vision for the driver was neatly sidestepped: the air conduit splits the rear window down the middle, directly behind the driver, who instead gets two interior rearview mirrors -- one for each half!
After encountering a McLaren F1 in person for the first time, one automotive journalist commented that he had never before seen a car whose execution was perfect. Absolutely flawless, right down to the alignment of the carbon fiber cloth.
I guess that's what a million dollars buys you.
So how well does all this sophistication work? Not surprisingly, I've never driven one, so all I can tell you is secondhand. But the journalists raved. At 190 mph, you shift into sixth and drop the hammer, and the acceleration is strong enough to thrust you back into your seat. "This car just keeps accelerating," is a comment echoed more than once. Mario Andretti, driving for Road & Track magazine in an F1 with low gearing, hit the redline at 217 mph and said it wanted to go faster; there was plenty of power left.
The official top speed usually claimed for the F1 is 231 mph, easily the highest of any regular production road car. But it's not all top end, either. The massive torque and runaway power catapult the F1 from 0-60mph in under four seconds, enough to send ANY other production car reeling.
Now that we've established the car's credentials, let's look at Maisto's model.
Mine is a lovely shade of dark green, polished to quite a high gloss. The shape is nicely executed, with the trademark angled vents and slats along the doors. The tires look right, and the wheels have gold nuts at the hubs, matching a photo in my collection.
The doors are close, opening to about the correct angle, but they don't use the same style hinges as the real car. This is forgivable, and they simulate the action nicely. In addition, they agreeably stay in whatever position you choose -- a nice bonus in a model with vertically-opening doors. In an unusual point for a diecast, they have fully glazed windows, showing the division where a small sub-pane on the real car rolls down.
The front end holds the first disappointment: the forward trunklid doesn't open. This is unusual for Maisto, who usually gives us opening compartments front and aft, where practical. In addition to that, there is a small vent just below the windshield, and the piece over that is misaligned in my model. One point off.
The windshield itself is the right shape, but there's something subtly wrong. After looking at a few pictures, it becomes clear: there is a grey "frame" area surrounding the edge, and it should be black. Another point off.
The air intake on the roof leads us neatly to the engine lid, which is plastic but perfectly matched to the paint on the metal. In addition, as far as I can tell it is perfectly correct in shape, and it opens nicely to reveal the BMW V12.
Well, a little bit of it. The head covers have nicely applied lettering reading, "BMW", "McLaren F1," and showing the BMW roundel. But due to the engine's position in the car, that's about all you can see.
Wait! The F1's have another hatch, further back, that should at least give us a nice look at the interesting exhaust plumbing! Well, it should. We can see a little of it through the grille in the hatch, so it's there. But, annoyingly, it doesn't open.
The next item on the car, proceeding backward, is a tiny, movable spoiler, and it does move on the model. It pivots upward a little. Oboy.
A look at the rear end of the Maisto gives us two disappointments, one more forgivable than the other. Real F1's have a fine horizontal grille running across the width of the rear, including across the taillights. The Maisto also has the grille, but it's thick in scale. It almost obscures the taillights. Since making it right would involve the expense of photoetching parts, I can easily forgive Maisto that little sin.
The other is harder: Real F1's have a small insignia at the back, reading simply "F1". The Maisto attempts to simulate this with a decal, and on sheetmetal it might have succeeded. On the plastic grille it just looks bad. They should have cast a flat spot into the grille, or left it off completely. This attempt fails.
The interior gets points for a nice try....
There's another thing that draws my attention in this model, and it took a while for me to really realize what it was. The paint. On most of my Maistos, I complain about the paint, with good cause. On this dark green F1? The paint is excellent. About as nearly perfect as I've ever seen in a Maisto model -- maybe their best.
Oh, and about that top speed previously quoted? In 1998 an F1 was driven on a track in Germany to an officially recorded speed of 240.1 mph.
Long live the King.
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