The man who directed the programme that created the McLaren P1 is called Paul Mackenzie. And when it was safely built and sold out he told me the truth about it. It was a long conversation but I still have the notes and one particular comment stands out.
He said: ‘The risks we took with P1 were absolutely immense. It makes me shudder to think of them. Just one example: we committed to building a hybrid without a single clue how to do a hybrid and knowing that the only kind of hybrid that would work for us – one which actually improved power-to-weight ratio – had never been done before. There had only been one person in the building who knew anything about hybrids, and he’d left…’
And yet build it they did. And when the concept was shown at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, there was something close to pandemonium in the hall – I know, because I was there, chuckling just a little to myself. Because as everyone speculated about just how diluted the production version would be, and what a shame it was that something so visually dramatic, with such extraordinary presence and its own very real beauty would have to be watered down before it could go on the road, I knew something they did not. Which was that it wasn’t a concept, but a fully finished car, which had had to be retro-engineered to make it look good on a show stand. It wasn’t a concept car at all. It was the real thing.
