Topic: Solved - NEH 3751: McLaren F2 - early proposal for eventual MP4-12C

[Carnut]

Identify what this is correctly for 1 point:

Remember - solving puzzles using 'Google Search by Image' is BANNED on AutoPuzzles!

[CrzRsn]

Looks like an early version of the McLaren MP4-12C. Perhaps a rejected design proposal or studio clay model.

[Carnut]

Looks like an early version of the McLaren MP4-12C. Perhaps a rejected design proposal or studio clay model.

McLaren is right, and maybe it was part of the MP4-12C project, though that's not the name applied to this proposal.
Locked for you to say what the name is!

[CrzRsn]

Found some sites claiming it to be a shot of the F2 project, but I'm skeptical, everything just seems like hype and rumors on random blogs with nothing from McLaren themselves or sites like Autoblog/Jalopnik/etc. The source says it is a prototype, however the totally opaque windows suggest otherwise. Judging by the timing those pictures hit the internet (2008), I'm pretty sure they actually are leaked early studio models of the then-upcoming MP4-12C.

Granted, at the time, McLaren may have been intending to call it the F2, with the naming switch happening last minute. The intenrnal code for this would have had to be P11 (P7 being the SLR McLaren, P8-P10 being Mercedes projects cancelled in 2005), which in the end hit production as the MP4-12C.

[Carnut]

That's about the long and the short of it, yes.  I suspect this isn't an actual car but a good rendering or more likely a scale model, but I may be wrong.
I suppose when the project started F2 seemed a reasonable name for it but they eventually decided on the much catchier MP4-12C, which rolls off the tongue of every schoolboy and enthusiast much more easily...!

Another point for you.

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