McLaren Shows Why Its Supercars Are Brilliant To Drive

Despite having only built road cars since the 1990s, McLaren is unquestionably one of the leading names in modern supercars. It intends to hold onto that reputation with its upcoming, 1,258-horsepower W1, while also staying afloat with new ownership, and exploring the possibility of a new SUV. Although it’s going through some wild things on the business side, the company continues to test and develop its cars, and it’s putting out a new web series to let people see how it does so. It’s called “Behind The Badge,” and the first episode covers stress testing of bodies and chassis.

Shaken, Stirred, Baked, And Frozen

Talking to us about the stress testing is Jon Preece, a McLaren body engineer. Among the highlights are the environmental chamber, in which the vehicle is moved and shaken with hydraulic posts under the wheels and tires in both intensely hot and cold temperatures. According to Preece, the temperatures can be shifted rapidly from either -104 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees. This kind of testing is important for seeing what happens when all the parts are expanding and contracting, while also being moved around. Of course, these are just some of the hundreds of tests McLaren runs.

We’re Hoping For Longer Episodes

It’s fun to see a little bit of how McLaren develops its cars, but we wish it showed more. This initial episode is just under a minute and a half in length. The fact that it’s available in a vertical format suggests that the series might be designed for YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and other short-form media sites.

We hope McLaren will consider creating longer videos, with perhaps truncated versions for other platforms. We’d be happy to sit down for several minutes, maybe even half an hour, to listen to some eager engineers dig into the development of the company’s carbon platforms, electric motors and more. Since this is just the first episode, there are definitely more to come. We’re not getting our hopes up for more in-depth videos, but if someone from McLaren is reading this and has the opportunity to make some adjustments, we’d be happy to see longer clips.