Is the McLaren MP4-12C too restrained for your Lambo-nurtured design tastes? McLaren’s upcoming range topper, the P1 supercar, looks like a cyborg gaboon viper and made its debut at this year’s Paris auto show.

For now, this P1—short for Project 1, which was the nickname of its iconic predecessor around the halls of Woking some 20 years ago—is just a “design study,” with details subject to change between now and the start of sales in about a year. The McLaren-logo-shaped headlights are likely to stay, and the roof-mounted intake inspired by the sanctified F1 is a certainty. That inlet is integrated into an evolution of McLaren’s carbon-fiber MonoCell monocoque, now called MonoCage, and it guides air to—among other things—the mid-mounted engine, which we believe will be a V-8.

“WHAT,” an aghast reader asks, “is with the V-8 in a car meant to rival 12-cylinder Ferraris and Lamborghinis?” McLaren’s 3.8-liter V-8 engine was developed entirely in-house and uses its own block and architecture. Earlier this year, the company’s head of vehicle development, Geoff Grose, told us the V-8 is meant to be the centerpiece of more than one car. Don’t worry about power; the MP4-12C’s version of this twin-turbocharged engine already makes 618 hp. (By the way, anyone remember how much power the F1 made? It was 618 on the nose.)

View Photos MARC URBANO, THE MANUFACTURER

To put such power to the pavement, the P1 is aided by massive amounts of downforce—more than 1300 pounds, if McLaren is to be believed. That’s five times as much as is produced by the MP4-12C and roughly the same sort of downward push generated by the MP4-12C GT3 race car. In times where such brutal forces are surplus to requirements, drivers can increase or decrease the amount generated by adjusting the rear wing’s angle of attack. (Think of it as your own personal Formula 1 drag-reduction system, and you don’t need to be within a second of anybody to use it.)

Other details we’ve gleaned from McLaren about the P1: Unlike the F1, the new car will seat two people, not three, and in conventional side-by-side positions. Doors will be of the crowd-stunner variety, lifting up and out as on the MP4-12C. McLaren has a carbon-fiber factory on site, so expect the lightweight material to be used everywhere on the P1—and for everything.

Details will be finalized when McLaren reveals the production version of the P1 some time early next year.

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