I'm told that my build commences 'week 50' (next week), so hopefully I'll receive mine by the end of January. I have those plates on my Elise now, I'm sure it's confusing some enthusiast I might pass who says, "wait, that's too small to be a McLaren." Actually, the number of digits and the letter/number sequence of ordinary license plates in New Jersey is virtually the same as "MP4-12C" anyway, so I doubt most folks will even notice that they are special order (until I put them on the real thing.)
I drove one of the prototypes that made the North American rounds back in September, but unfortunately it was raining about as hard as could be that day, so there wasn't much I could really tell at the time. Just recently, the very nice folks at McLaren Philadelphia received their dealer demo car (the titanium grey one that has appeared in a few pictures on this site) and I was able to take it out for a more proper test drive. To me, one of the most immediate and striking impressions the car makes is the ride quality, in all modes really, but particulaly in normal mode. Clarkson did not lie when he said it felt like a Bentley. Besides my Elise, I also own a GT-R and both feel like the suspension is made from stone. (Indeed, in the Elise, sometimes you are convinced that your bum is actually scraping along the asphalt.) The 12C ride is sublime.
The next impression the 12C makes comes from the enormous amount of power at your disposal. My GT-R has that too, but in the 12C there is a definite disconnect between the objective measurement of velocity on the speedometer and your PERCEPTION of the speeds you are attaining. In the GT-R, perceived speed and actual speed are about the same. In the Elise, you very often feel like you are actually going FASTER than you really are. In the 12C it's the opposite - you are going MUCH faster than it feels. Perhaps this is at the heart of the issue behind the early criticisms in the media. Everything is so seamless and perfect, the cabin is quiet, the muting effect of the turbos, and the ride so benign, that you are almost a little insulated from the true spectacle of what's going on outside. To be fair, the 2.0 sound is much better than before, and when the scenery starts to go blurry from the crazy speeds you can reach in a heartbeat, that's pretty thrilling in it's own right. To me, the intangible stuff is absolutely secondary anyway though. Knowing that a 458 or a GT2 RS will disappear in the rearview mirror is just fine with me. I don't need the fuss. You British guys are brilliant when it comes to understatement. I love it.
