One of the clear stars at this years 7th annual Orlando Festivals of Speed was the functionally elegant McLaren MP4-12C. Race engineered super-exotics that stole the show each and every time they were fired up and revved in revelry for the assembled crowd of Motorsports enthusiasts.
The car is powered by the M838T 3.8 liter twin-turbo V8 engine, designed and developed by McLaren in partnership with Ricardo. The design of the engine was based on the Nissan VRH35 racing engine, which was developed and owned by Tom Walkinshaw Racing and used in the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, other than the 93 mm bore, little of that engine remains in the M838T. It produces 592 bhp and 443 lb·ft of torque. It has a red line of 8,500 rpm, with 80% of torque available at just 2,000 rpm. When first announced, McLaren claimed that it would have a higher horsepower to carbon dioxide emission ratio than any internal-combustion engine available at the time.
McLaren announced a small number of improvements to become available in October 2012, with the option to be retrofitted to existing cars free of charge. The engine now produces 617 bhp and no change to the CO2 emissions which remain at 279 g/km. This power output has also become standard on the 2013 model.
