WEBVTT - TechStuff Races with McLaren 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.320 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, they were and welcome to 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.760 text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bock Obama 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:21.360 and we're just reason to go over this episode rear 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.840 in to go. I think it's the phrase racing to 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.320 the finish line. We're talking about a company that has 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.839 pretty played a pretty important role in automotive racing, the 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.720 McLaren Group. They also play a really interesting role, as 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.159 it turns out, in many other industries. As it turns out, 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.800 you know, in order to have a vibrant company, UM 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:49.040 one must diversify, and diversify they have. They have. They 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.760 have branched out quite a bit beyond just the the 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.960 I hesitate to use the word humble beginnings because Formula 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.520 one racing, as it turns out, is an incredibly expensive endeavor. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.720 But they they've brenched out from their very focused approach 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.319 on racing in general into lots of different stuff. And 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.600 we have to mention at the very top of this 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.120 show that some of the stuff we're gonna be talking 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.640 about uh is very very specific to cars UM and 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.680 very specific to automotive racing. Two things that while Lauren 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.160 and I are experts on oh yes, well, of course 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.440 there are other people in this office who I hesitate 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.959 to even admit it, but they are even bigger experts, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.560 specifically Scott Benjamin, who is a walking the automotive encyclopedia. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.640 He very much is. And he and Ben Ben ben 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.639 Bowen that is do a terrific show called Car Stuff, 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.319 which we have mentioned and uh and Ben has in 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.120 fact been on Tech Stuff a couple of times alongside 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.880 Jonathan and uh. Yeah. So if you are very interested 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.760 in the really down and dirty specifics of Formula one 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.640 racing or other forms of racing, then go check out 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.280 their podcasts and videos at car Stuff show dot com. 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.640 You can find a whole wealth of information there, because yeah, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.760 those those kids are crazy. It got to a point 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.600 where I was getting a little confused about the different 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.919 designations for vehicles, which we will talk about a bit 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.960 in this show. And I actually Scott sits next to me, 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.639 well peek behind the curtain at how stuff works. He's 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.119 literally on my right side, and I would just turn 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.399 to an us at Scott, I don't understand what makes 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.400 the difference between this kind of car and that kind 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.200 of car, and he says, well, you know, Jonathan, that 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.839 is what they're banking on. So, but they they are 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.000 very good at explaining what all the little intricacies are. 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:43.280 So McLaren group, what is it? Well, actually, it's it's 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.399 kind of a big company that has a bunch of 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.440 divisions that are all operating like independent companies. Right, So 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.440 it's a conglomerate. Uh, And it's innovative in lots of 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.120 fields of these days. Besides the race cars and even 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.480 road cars, cars that if you private sector, if you 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:07.440 happen to have a million dollars MILLI chu. They also 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:13.040 do work in health, energy, entertainment, and transportation. So I 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.720 guess transportation technically would be if you have a million 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.840 bucks and you're ready to drop it on a two 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.400 door uh former what what used to be a race 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.600 car but has been modified to be a road car. Yeah. 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.760 The reason that I was so eager to do an 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:28.560 episode on this company is that I just find it 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.000 so fascinating that a group of people who do really 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:37.280 technical Formula one racing stuff also occasionally make cartoons or 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.640 food products. Yeah. Yeah, that that does definitely raise some eyebrows, right, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.440 So we wanted to see what exactly this company was 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.000 all about. And for those who are wondering what this 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.920 has to do with tech, Formula one racing, really, any 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.920 kind of automotive racing where you have very specific parameters 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.080 set for what your car can and cannot do, tends 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:01.080 to really focus on very technical aspects, particularly Formula one, uh, certainly. 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.119 And also as they have developed all of these technologies, 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.920 they've started getting into other sectors of censor and data 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.080 crunching that are really fascinating. So let's go all the 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.680 way back to the beginning. What is this How did 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.640 McLaren begin? Okay, so it is in fact named after 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.920 a person. If you do not follow racing, you may 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.240 not be familiar with Bruce McLaren, who was a New 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.719 Zealander who became very interested in automotive racing when he 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.560 was just a kid. And uh he became a competitive 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.520 driver and impressed the racing world with a skill. Became 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.000 the youngest driver to win a championship race in nineteen 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.039 fifty nine, which was the US Grand Prix, and he 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.200 won it at the age of twenty two. Not too 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.280 long after that, he decided that he wanted to form 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.280 his own racing group and that team would become the 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.039 tiny kernel, the little oyster pearl at the at the 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.400 center of what the McLaren group is today exactly, and 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:00.280 so he competed primarily in Formula one racing is a 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.440 type of open wheeled, single seat automotive races. It tends 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.920 to be more popular in Europe than in the United States. 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.640 There are US races as well, but they usually include 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.960 courses that go on public roads which are closed for 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.039 the duration of the races. You don't really want to 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.680 have regular road traffic, no, no, but it means that 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:21.800 the cars have to be able to take those turns 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:23.880 and be able to hug the road. There in fact 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.200 designed so that, you know how an airplane wing is designed, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.160 so it generates lift a Formula one race cars kind 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.320 of the opposite way. It has a downward force applied 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.760 from the from its design, so admits like it makes 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.440 it hug the road better because when you're going two 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.120 hundred and twenty miles per hour, you kind of need 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.960 a little bit of Imagine going down peach Tree at 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.240 two hundred and twenty miles per hour, I mean that's 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.480 sometimes I get up to like forty I feel like 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.640 I'm about to die. Yeah, so it really does require 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.120 a special type of vehicle. He also raised another sporting 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.360 events like the twenty four hour Laments, which is more 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.280 of a that's obviously an endurance race, not not a 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.240 speed race like a like a Formula one. Current rules 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.760 state that you have to have three drivers and swap 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.239 them out yeah the course of the race. A couple 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.560 of people in the history of Lamonts have attempted to 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.839 do the whole thing by themselves, uh as an only 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.120 one driver. But again, listen to car stuff if you 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.760 want to hear more about long car races. Now. In 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.360 nineteen sixty three, Bruce McLaren began to form a new 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.679 racing team originally known as the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.120 and the team entered the history books by being the 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.320 first group to construct a car around a carbon fiber 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.440 monica k that's how Scott pronounces it. I would say 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.520 mona cooke because I think of it as French. But 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.360 this is essentially a type of frame where the skin 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:50.840 of the frame itself gives support to the overall structure. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.039 So it's as opposed to having like struts or columns 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.359 that keep the frame in place. The actual skin of 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.760 the frame can do it now. Uh, so that will 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:03.640 become more important a little bit later. But the racing 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.800 team really focused on any kind of element that would 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.240 give a vehicle more speed and control given the limitations 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.360 and requirements of whatever type of racing was involved. Right, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.280 Formula one, as we have said, specifically has a lot 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.000 of requirements you have to meet, and in fact, it's 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.880 it's a long standing tradition in all forms of racing 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.440 that engineers will look at the rules that racing, uh 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.400 the racing of board has come up with and find 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.080 ways to skirt around them. Yeah, it's it's kind of 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.720 like Fay logic and certain points, it's it's like, well, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.880 you said literally this thing, and so we will do 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.840 literally this thing, but kind of the way we want 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.640 to exactly, Yeah, the whole Yeah, exactly the either the 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.440 Fay logic or if you didn't lay out your wish 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.240 exactly right with the Genie and the Dudgeons of Dragons game. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.840 So yeah, as it turns out, well will specifically call 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.240 out one car where McLaren was able to to, you know, 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.920 take advantage of a little loophole. Now, if we want 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.160 to look at the earliest vehicles, that they were interested in. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.080 Way back in nineteen sixty five, McLaren and a guy 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.000 named Robin Heard collaborated to design race car called the 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.640 M one B, which would help McLaren take second place 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.080 in the Canadian Grand Prix UH. In nineteen sixty seven, 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.520 McLaren Racing Limited produced a car called the M six 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.680 A that won five of six major races. So, even 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.080 though it was a young company, because of the experience 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.720 of the driver and the experience of the engineers involved, 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.719 they were really competitive early early on. And keep in mind, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.920 these Formula one racing cars are like crazy expensive. You know, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.839 we talked about a million for that sports car. That's 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.440 nothing compared to a Formula one car. So the following year, 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.360 that same car, the M six A, would win four 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.400 of the six races. In in in nineteen sixty nine, it 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.720 would win eleven races and was it was painted Papaya 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.199 Aren't Yeah. That would later become known as McLaren Orange 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:01.400 and was adopted as the official call the company. Yeah, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.760 So if you ever see an orange Formula one car 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:09.000 pass you by, it's probably from McLaren. Nineteen sixty eight, 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:13.400 McLaren wins a major race driving a McLaren Ford vehicle 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.400 called the M seven A, which you know, if you've 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.080 ever seen like those designations of one car name and 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.920 then another car name, it usually means one company was 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.680 responsible for building the body of the car and another 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.160 was responsible for the engine. In this case, it was 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.160 a McLaren design on top of a Ford engine, yes, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.200 the Cosworth DFV. The McLaren team begins to design a 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.160 grand tour vehicle with the I had to compete in 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.640 can am races. Now that's Canadian American races that used 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.240 to be held in North America. They are they've been 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.640 morphed into other types of races since then. Uh. That 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.679 particular vehicle was called the McLaren M six G t 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.720 GT for a Grand Tourer and McLaren himself would tweak 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:59.280 it so that it could have a road car based 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:04.280 on its design, because race cars are not strictly speaking legal. Yeah, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.640 so he wanted to have a street legal vehicle. Essentially, 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.240 he wanted to have a race car he could drive 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.280 on the road. So really it was all about finding 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.960 what he needed to tweak too, so that the car 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.840 he loved to drive on the racetrack would be the 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.640 one to make it safe enough, yes, yes, for not 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:27.360 only himself but other passers by exactly. Uh so, yeah, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.439 this was this was an interesting little quirk of his personality. Unfortunately, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.199 in nineteen seventy Bruce McLaren died in a car accident 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.880 while testing that new vehicle, that new road car, and 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:46.000 uh obviously huge tragedy. The McLaren group stuck together and 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.920 continued to uh to to build cars. Um. Bruce McClaren 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.520 was one of, but not the only race driver that 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.240 they worked with, So they continued to work with other 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.600 drivers and in nineteen seventy one they built the M 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.160 six team that was an indie race car yea, indeed, 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.040 being kind of similar to Formula one in that it's 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.920 open wheel, single seater car. But but the indie cars 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.320 race of course around tracks, yes, yeah, so like those 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.320 long oval tracks like the Indianapolis, the most famous race. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.200 So if you ever wonder what the big differences are 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.040 between an indie car and a Formula one car, and 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.480 you see them and they look kind of similar, just 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.280 know that they're probably there's probably a few hundred thousand 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.120 dollars more worth of technology in a Formula one car 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.040 than an indie car. Just because they have more to 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.840 deal with. Yeah, they have to go on those surface streets. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.160 And so I think of like the Formula one cars 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.160 as you know, like like Kit from Night Rider. It's 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.760 got this crazy amount of technology. Probably no machine guns 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.960 or smoke, you know, bombs or anything like that, probably 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.920 because they're usually looking out for weight. So I guess, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.200 and you know, someone really dastardly. Right, You've got some 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.760 sort of snidely whiplash character on there. But now the 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.400 cars don't need that. They need, you know, they obviously 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.319 need to worry about weight and speed and power and 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.080 all that kind of stuff, but they don't have to 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.840 have the same kind of levels of crazy technology that 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.760 the Formula one cars do. Now in nine, we're skipping 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.959 ahead a whole decade. John Bernard designs the MP four 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.079 Slash one Formula one car. Now this is the car 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.599 that featured the carbon fiber design we talked about a 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.280 little bit earlier in the show. So during the race 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:33.439 on Italy's Monza racetrack, driver John Watson crashed his MP 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.240 four Slash one while going a hundred forty miles per hour. 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.920 That's two per hour in case you were wondering. So 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.679 the car was destroyed, totally destroyed, but that carbon fiber 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:52.079 frame stayed intact and Watson walked away from the crash. Yeah, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.960 Bernard's design would go on to be the basis for 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.600 car models all over the world to this success and 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.120 key being the driver a lot exactly once people saw wow, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.920 this thing was really effective and and and kept this 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.959 this driver safe. Uh, everyone wanted to adopt it because 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.200 it was carbon fiber. And we did a whole episode 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.160 on carbon fiber, so go back and listen to it 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.320 if you don't remember. But super lightweight and super strong. Now, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.240 in nine, that's when McLaren Group would create a new 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.920 company called McLaren Cars, and this would be their company 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.320 to focus on purely street legal sporting cars. Would be 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.120 a while before they would introduce their first one, but yeah, 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.080 they started saying, well, we've got all this experience and 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:41.600 developing race cars, but you know, race cars they have 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.240 a very limited use, and we have to build a 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:50.679 new one essentially every year because and I mean really 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.360 every two weeks. I mean you're you're improving them at 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.839 such a rapid pace that you're continually putting new stuff 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.120 in there. And although you can get a lot of 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.200 money from sponsorships and advertisement and stuff like that. It's 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.720 a little bit less of a pure business deal than 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.280 perhaps just selling fancy cars to fancy people. Also that 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.880 year they would create McLaren Electronic Systems, which was a 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.400 branch of the company to develop and implement electronic fuel 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.200 injection systems for their race cars, which would also eventually 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.040 start creating all kinds of sensors and transmitters and computer 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.720 systems for monitoring and analyzing the minutia of their race 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.280 cars inner workings, which would allow for their racing teams 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.600 to do that continual tweaking and improvement even in the 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.440 middle of a racing season, you know, so that you 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.160 can see what's going on in your car live, minute 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.680 by minute and and improve it once it gets back 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:46.960 to the shop. And see, this kind of technology is 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.120 the stuff that ends up spilling out into the consumer 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.120 market eventually. So you get you you know, you you 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.120 have a very specific need in the racing world because 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.920 you are you are performing at the peak right You're 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.160 going up against other people who are just as as 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.000 well equipped as you are, and you need every advantage 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.040 you can get. So there's this drive to innovate technology. Well, 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.040 that technology fortunately has the added benefit of helping the 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.160 rest of us out once it filters into the consumer market. 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.440 So that's another reason why this is an important company. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.960 Well in, McLaren Automotive produces the McLaren F one supercar, 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.920 which was the first road car from McLaren apart from 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.600 the two prototype McLaren M six GT vehicles that were 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.960 produced back when Bruce McLaren was still alive. So this 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:38.680 is the first time they actually had a road car 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:44.360 that was available for UH affluent people to purchase. It 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.160 was designed by Gordon Murray and Peter Stevens, and it 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.320 would set the record for the world's fastest production car 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:55.160 in h at the top speed a top advertised speed 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.280 of two d forty miles per hour, which is three 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.600 kilometers per hour. Uh I say advertise speed because there 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.400 were people who got it faster than that. Oh okay. 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.440 The the interior of this car was a little bit strange. 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.560 The driver's seat was kind of in the middle and 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.280 the two passenger seats were to either side but set 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.840 a bit back behind it. Yeah, so you're you know, 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:19.960 I think of it like imagine you're driving an X 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.640 Wing but you've got two passengers sitting like to your 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.480 left and right just a little bit back. Uh, because 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.680 it does seem like I mean, I'm it's unusual for 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.040 we Americans to look at cars that are driven around 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.520 in England where the driver's side is on the right 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:36.680 side is just left, but putting it right in the 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.280 middle totally bizarro world. I'm sure it had to do 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.920 with weight specifications and balance or something I try not 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.120 to question. It may have just been the limited space 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.600 inside what used to be Again, like like McLaren was 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.480 known for taking these these designs that were used in 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.280 race cars where usually you had a single seat it 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.000 was just a single seated car, and then to adopt 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.000 that and and change it into a road car meant 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:05.560 that you had to have at least a two seater. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.960 You could not do a single seat car. So this 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:11.760 might have been part of that about, you know, kind 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.320 of shifting things around so it technically is a three 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.480 person car. It did feature an engine that was made 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.680 by bmw UM and a specialized version of it, the 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:26.040 F one GTR would win the Laman's race with the Lamans, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:32.080 which we talked about earlier. There were only sixty four 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.760 of the F one built, and only nine of the 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.840 G t R. Yes. So when we say that they 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.639 produced a sports car, we're talking about this. This is 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.280 these are handbuilt cars. Yeah. This isn't like a Detroit 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.840 auto manufacturing line where you've got the huge line of 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.200 vehicles where you've got ten thousand and you know we're 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.600 talking these are like boutique cars. That's part of the 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.800 reason why they are what I would call prohibitively expensive, 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.480 because I certainly would be prohibited from affording one. In 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.800 Mercedes would begin to build the engines for McLaren race vehicles, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.280 which that arrangement continues today. So we've seen a lot 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.520 of different engines so far, talking about Ford and BMW, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:20.120 but Mercedes has become the the exclusive provider of engines. 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.320 Actually they for a while they were real buddy buddy, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.639 he will talk about that in a second McLaren engine 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.120 is purchased by a new management team and renamed McLaren 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:35.359 Performance Technologies, which would again be acquired by another company 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.600 called Lenamar in two thousand three. Its new role is 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.439 to design, develop and test prototype operation for original equipment manufacturing. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.720 So this is o e M. You may have heard 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.400 that term before. O E M It's used in all 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.240 sorts of industries, not just the automotive industry. We're talking 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.600 about everything. Essentially, what O E M companies do is 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.280 they build the stuff that goes into other companies stuff. 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.960 So if you ever hear of O E M for 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.359 like a smartphone, that might be a company that just 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.000 makes the screen or maybe it just makes the batter 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.960 which components, Yeah, exactly, so that's what that's what now 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.120 McLaren Engine does or McLaren Performance Technologies. It's also really 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.720 confusing if you look up McLaren and you start looking 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.360 at all these different companies. Some of them now no 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.640 longer have really any connection to the original McLaren group. Um, 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.720 but they do still bear the McLaren name, and at 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.159 one point they were part of McLaren Group, So that 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.840 gets a little confusing too. Also, most of them have 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.040 the word technology in the name somewhere. Yeah, a little 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.800 sort of like living in Atlanta and all the peach trees, Yes, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:44.879 a little bit. Uh. Also, Adrian Newi and Neil Oatlely 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.840 designed the McLaren MP four thirteen Formula One car, and 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:53.480 driver Mika Hackenan would win the Driver's World Championship in 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.040 that car and I'm sure I'm mispronounced his name. Scott 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:03.280 actually was working with with Chrysler at the time. And uh, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.840 and we'll talk about how that has plays a part 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.600 because he actually heard all about this. He was telling 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:14.119 me stories. It was fantastic. So McClaren begins building the 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.480 McClaren Technology Center formerly known as the Paragon Technology Center. 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.720 And it's on a huge site. It's got a five 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.160 hundred thousand square meters which is about five point four 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:31.800 million square feet out in the UK countryside. Yeah, and uh, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.600 it's pretty it's very pretty. Well. We'll talk a little 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:37.600 bit more about that in a couple of years down 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.879 on the timeline. Um. But first, in the year two thousand, 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:47.000 Diamler Chrysler would purchase of the McLaren group YEP, and 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.680 the other sixty percent of the company was owned by 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.280 a pair of owners who agreed to vote as a 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.160 unit on any issue the company faced. But that got 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.720 a little more complicated. Those two owners each sold half 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.760 of their share, so think of that as they each 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:05.240 sold fifteen percent to a holding company which also agreed 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.439 to vote in a block with the two owners, so 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.320 all three of those owners would vote together. They still 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.479 represent six of the overall ownership of the company, and 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.760 then over time all of the owners would buy shares 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:23.400 back from Daimler until there was a complete separation between 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.840 McLaren and Mercedes, which is also owned by daime Ler. 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.400 By that time, by the way, dame Ler and Chrysler 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.600 would have split up. So what we're trying to say 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:39.439 here is that corporate relationships, especially in the automotive world, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.879 are complicated. Yeah, would get to a point where I 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.000 was trying to have this conversation again with Scott. He 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:47.560 was just curious because once he heard that we were 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:49.720 going to do this, he had lots of questions. Uh 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.120 and he and I said, you know Diamler Chrysler, So, oh, 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.840 you just mean Dameler now, Oh yeah, I guess I 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.320 do write that in my notes. So what does this 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:01.720 all mean? Well, it means that McLaren would have to 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.080 start paying for engines from Mercedes rather than having them 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:08.160 provided because they were all part of the same big family. 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.399 So that changed the bottom line for McLaren Group as 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.239 far as developing race cars. But otherwise they've kept on 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.960 with this relationship when Mercedes still purchasing their engines from them. 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:24.520 In two thousand and four, McLaren Group creates McLaren Applied Technologies, 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.879 and according to their website, they are built on decades 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.000 of success in Formula one and they're driven by relentless 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.919 desire to win. Applying our knowledge, expertise and experience, we 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:40.040 deliver real measurable results across industries from motorsport and automotive 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:45.280 to energy and healthcare, at which point you might say, huh, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.960 but yeah, when you think about it again, with Formula one, 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:50.880 it was all about we need to gather data. Yeah, 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:55.760 it's it's sensory sensory technologies and big data crunching exactly. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.040 You have to be able to get all the information 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:01.280