The 2014 McLaren P1: What the critics say

The Wall Street Journal

“Odds are you’re never going to own the greatest sports car ever made, or even see it in the flesh.” Each new P1 from McLaren sells for $1.2 million, only 375 are being made, and all of those have already been spoken for. But this “technically profound, absolutely nutter” driving machine deserves better than to vanish into the garages of scattered collectors. At least one should be visiting grade schools everywhere—“to inspire kids to study science and engineering.”

Motor Trend

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Consider these numbers: The P1 needs just 2.6 seconds to reach 60 mph, or 9.8 to reach 148.9—thus superseding the Bugatti Veyron as the quickest production vehicle we’ve ever tested. Yet the P1’s handling might be even more astonishing. Driving this carbon-bodied work of art is “like landing on an alien world where you need to reset your expectations about the capabilities of cars.”

Car and Driver

The engine note is thrilling, the brake system “stellar,” and the steering so beautifully tuned that it “feels as if it were plugged directly into your lizard brain.” Lithe, alert, and “entirely cackle-worthy,” the P1 is “every bit as great to drive as you might hope it to be.”