Here's What A McLaren P1 Looks Like Underneath
May 12, 2015, 10:30am
Hot. That's what it looks like. The McLaren P1 is usually swathed in a clamshell body of aerodynamically tuned carbon composite panels, but underneath it's a cacophony of exhaust piping and turbochargers and high-voltage electrical wiring. And radiators. Lots of radiators.
Spotted by our mates at Jalopnik, this particular McLaren P1 was visiting Imola Motorsports to have a rear tail-light replaced — a single LED bulb inside one wasn't working — and the guys there took the opportunity to take a more careful look at the rest of the car's high-tech machinery at the same time.
Photographer Alex Bellus snapped some photos while the P1 had its clothes off, and the result is a fascinating look at some of the ridiculous levels of packaging that go into shoe-horning a 3.8-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 and an accompanying KERS-style electric motor and energy recovery system into a chassis that weighs less than a mid-sized family car. No inch of space is wasted inside the P1's engine bay, but everything has clearly been very precisely placed.
Head over to Jalopnik to see a couple of dozen photos of the engineering hiding underneath the P1's bodywork, like the intricately hung central exhaust, oodles of raw carbon fibre for the monocoque chassis and the giant side-mounted stacked radiators that are cooled by air channelled through the hypercar's massive side air ducts. [Jalopnik / Imola Motorsports]