BODY STRUCTURES
The vehicle body and its underlying structure are fundamental to the class-leading characteristics of a McLaren. Advanced composite materials, sophisticated development tools, novel processes and world-class engineering skills are blended to create a unique combination of structural performance, quality and durability in our road cars.
CARBON FIBRE SAFETY CELL
At the heart of a McLaren road car is a carbon-fibre tub. Just like the Team McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 cars this structure offers a rigid safety cell in which the driver sits. It also offers superior torsional stiffness to improve handling, in addition to being extremely light and strong.
Body engineers work very closely with the analysis department to optimise the design and material specification of the carbon fibre tub, maximising body stiffness and strength within the vehicle package.
Key to this optimisation is consideration of the manufacturing and assembly processes involved, as a highly stable and repeatable process allows the performance of materials to be predicted very accurately.
BODY PANELS
Similarly engineers work closely with styling to ensure the form and construction of body panels are compatible with the manufacturing processes to be used.
McLaren Automotive employs advanced composite materials for the body panels of its road cars to minimise mass, optimum stiffness and achieve a high-quality surface finish throughout the life of the car. In this area McLaren Automotive has developed innovative processes for the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren to reduce the ‘weave’ effect of painted carbon fibre body panel.
DOORS
When designing the body of a McLaren road car our engineers must consider many aspects of the vehicle, including styling, sealing, safety, quality and accessibility.
The dihedral doors of a McLaren road car for example not only provide optimum vehicle access, in terms of ingress and egress, but also enhance the visual presence of the vehicle. To function correctly the door must be rigid and durable, seal perfectly and fit the rest of the vehicle body highly accurately.
Advanced composite materials are again optimised using finite element simulation, and computational dimensional management tools enable production tolerances to be precisely specified.
DEVELOPMENT
Once the vehicle concept and package work is complete, detailed specifications, design and analysis leads to design release for the first prototype cars.
McLaren Automotive uses advanced rapid prototyping and tooling methods from the world of the Team McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 team to produce parts extremely quickly. This speed of response enables design, testing and product lead times to be improved benefiting the development program timing.
Each part is rigorously tested not just in terms of its performance and durability but its quality and ease of assembly, to ensure that every product which leaves the McLaren Technology Centre is accurately manufactured to meet the original design specification.
