PhilB's blog

Last night I was away from home but was contacted on four occasions in the middle of trhe night by my alarm company to say that my garage alarm had been activated...  I immediately checked the live CCTV stream and couldn't see any problem at all, so I presumed it was just a false alarm...

But on close inspection of my DVR footage upon my return today I discovered that there had been a genuine intruder:

It seems my 12C is the preferred choice of BATS!

After my car was upgraded to 'the latest' 8.2 firmware I noticed that when reversing the passenger door mirror completely failed to automatically dip properly (it was randomly OK before), yet I had been told that one of the bugs fixed in 8.2 was to correct issues some owners were experiencing with their mirrors!

I've been using the car every day for the last few weeks and this has been driving me a bit crazy as I really want to avoid rim damage.

Doubtless at great expense to any potential customer, German tuning company Mansory have taken a 12C, widened it by 60mm, added a set of 20" alloys, an additional rear spoiler and deep front splitter as well as a rift of carbon panels, ducts and interior styling tweaks.

For me the only thing I like about this is the extra 62BHP that Mansory claim their engine modifications deliver!

So you love the look of the MP4-12C HS special version but don't have the urge to spend $420,000?

Well here's how you can achieve a very similar effect with a few hundered dollars of matt black wrap:

OR This:

These images were kindly taken for me by McLaren's head of client services, Kate Neale and whilst I've had them for a while I promised not to share them until after the new MPC facility was officially opened!

I've just been informed that McLaren have today signed off a comprehensive range of MP4-12C firmware and hardware updgrades that fix a range of niggles including battery drain and over sensitive fault sensors. These updates will be available for installation into customer cars within a few weeks and will also allow deliveries of new cars to be resumed.

Last week I received a personally signed letter from Ron Dennis, it read:

McLaren have received a fair amount of criticism over the MP4-12C's 'Iris' info-tainment system which is unfortunately not fully functional as yet.

OK, here is a 30 second video of a McLaren MP4-12C during mid-throttle acceleration using only 6,000 rpm. Powertrain mode is set to 'track'. This car has the 'standard' exhaust system.

As you'll see the Standard Silver really comes to life when exposed to natural light!