Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey, they were and welcome to
Speaker 1: text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bock Obama
Speaker 1: and we're just reason to go over this episode rear
Speaker 1: in to go. I think it's the phrase racing to
Speaker 1: the finish line. We're talking about a company that has
Speaker 1: pretty played a pretty important role in automotive racing, the
Speaker 1: McLaren Group. They also play a really interesting role, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, in many other industries. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: you know, in order to have a vibrant company, UM
Speaker 1: one must diversify, and diversify they have. They have. They
Speaker 1: have branched out quite a bit beyond just the the
Speaker 1: I hesitate to use the word humble beginnings because Formula
Speaker 1: one racing, as it turns out, is an incredibly expensive endeavor.
Speaker 1: But they they've brenched out from their very focused approach
Speaker 1: on racing in general into lots of different stuff. And
Speaker 1: we have to mention at the very top of this
Speaker 1: show that some of the stuff we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about uh is very very specific to cars UM and
Speaker 1: very specific to automotive racing. Two things that while Lauren
Speaker 1: and I are experts on oh yes, well, of course
Speaker 1: there are other people in this office who I hesitate
Speaker 1: to even admit it, but they are even bigger experts,
Speaker 1: specifically Scott Benjamin, who is a walking the automotive encyclopedia.
Speaker 1: He very much is. And he and Ben Ben ben
Speaker 1: Bowen that is do a terrific show called Car Stuff,
Speaker 1: which we have mentioned and uh and Ben has in
Speaker 1: fact been on Tech Stuff a couple of times alongside
Speaker 1: Jonathan and uh. Yeah. So if you are very interested
Speaker 1: in the really down and dirty specifics of Formula one
Speaker 1: racing or other forms of racing, then go check out
Speaker 1: their podcasts and videos at car Stuff show dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find a whole wealth of information there, because yeah,
Speaker 1: those those kids are crazy. It got to a point
Speaker 1: where I was getting a little confused about the different
Speaker 1: designations for vehicles, which we will talk about a bit
Speaker 1: in this show. And I actually Scott sits next to me,
Speaker 1: well peek behind the curtain at how stuff works. He's
Speaker 1: literally on my right side, and I would just turn
Speaker 1: to an us at Scott, I don't understand what makes
Speaker 1: the difference between this kind of car and that kind
Speaker 1: of car, and he says, well, you know, Jonathan, that
Speaker 1: is what they're banking on. So, but they they are
Speaker 1: very good at explaining what all the little intricacies are.
Speaker 1: So McLaren group, what is it? Well, actually, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of a big company that has a bunch of
Speaker 1: divisions that are all operating like independent companies. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's a conglomerate. Uh, And it's innovative in lots of
Speaker 1: fields of these days. Besides the race cars and even
Speaker 1: road cars, cars that if you private sector, if you
Speaker 1: happen to have a million dollars MILLI chu. They also
Speaker 1: do work in health, energy, entertainment, and transportation. So I
Speaker 1: guess transportation technically would be if you have a million
Speaker 1: bucks and you're ready to drop it on a two
Speaker 1: door uh former what what used to be a race
Speaker 1: car but has been modified to be a road car. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason that I was so eager to do an
Speaker 1: episode on this company is that I just find it
Speaker 1: so fascinating that a group of people who do really
Speaker 1: technical Formula one racing stuff also occasionally make cartoons or
Speaker 1: food products. Yeah. Yeah, that that does definitely raise some eyebrows, right,
Speaker 1: So we wanted to see what exactly this company was
Speaker 1: all about. And for those who are wondering what this
Speaker 1: has to do with tech, Formula one racing, really, any
Speaker 1: kind of automotive racing where you have very specific parameters
Speaker 1: set for what your car can and cannot do, tends
Speaker 1: to really focus on very technical aspects, particularly Formula one, uh, certainly.
Speaker 1: And also as they have developed all of these technologies,
Speaker 1: they've started getting into other sectors of censor and data
Speaker 1: crunching that are really fascinating. So let's go all the
Speaker 1: way back to the beginning. What is this How did
Speaker 1: McLaren begin? Okay, so it is in fact named after
Speaker 1: a person. If you do not follow racing, you may
Speaker 1: not be familiar with Bruce McLaren, who was a New
Speaker 1: Zealander who became very interested in automotive racing when he
Speaker 1: was just a kid. And uh he became a competitive
Speaker 1: driver and impressed the racing world with a skill. Became
Speaker 1: the youngest driver to win a championship race in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, which was the US Grand Prix, and he
Speaker 1: won it at the age of twenty two. Not too
Speaker 1: long after that, he decided that he wanted to form
Speaker 1: his own racing group and that team would become the
Speaker 1: tiny kernel, the little oyster pearl at the at the
Speaker 1: center of what the McLaren group is today exactly, and
Speaker 1: so he competed primarily in Formula one racing is a
Speaker 1: type of open wheeled, single seat automotive races. It tends
Speaker 1: to be more popular in Europe than in the United States.
Speaker 1: There are US races as well, but they usually include
Speaker 1: courses that go on public roads which are closed for
Speaker 1: the duration of the races. You don't really want to
Speaker 1: have regular road traffic, no, no, but it means that
Speaker 1: the cars have to be able to take those turns
Speaker 1: and be able to hug the road. There in fact
Speaker 1: designed so that, you know how an airplane wing is designed,
Speaker 1: so it generates lift a Formula one race cars kind
Speaker 1: of the opposite way. It has a downward force applied
Speaker 1: from the from its design, so admits like it makes
Speaker 1: it hug the road better because when you're going two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty miles per hour, you kind of need
Speaker 1: a little bit of Imagine going down peach Tree at
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty miles per hour, I mean that's
Speaker 1: sometimes I get up to like forty I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm about to die. Yeah, so it really does require
Speaker 1: a special type of vehicle. He also raised another sporting
Speaker 1: events like the twenty four hour Laments, which is more
Speaker 1: of a that's obviously an endurance race, not not a
Speaker 1: speed race like a like a Formula one. Current rules
Speaker 1: state that you have to have three drivers and swap
Speaker 1: them out yeah the course of the race. A couple
Speaker 1: of people in the history of Lamonts have attempted to
Speaker 1: do the whole thing by themselves, uh as an only
Speaker 1: one driver. But again, listen to car stuff if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about long car races. Now. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, Bruce McLaren began to form a new
Speaker 1: racing team originally known as the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing
Speaker 1: and the team entered the history books by being the
Speaker 1: first group to construct a car around a carbon fiber
Speaker 1: monica k that's how Scott pronounces it. I would say
Speaker 1: mona cooke because I think of it as French. But
Speaker 1: this is essentially a type of frame where the skin
Speaker 1: of the frame itself gives support to the overall structure.
Speaker 1: So it's as opposed to having like struts or columns
Speaker 1: that keep the frame in place. The actual skin of
Speaker 1: the frame can do it now. Uh, so that will
Speaker 1: become more important a little bit later. But the racing
Speaker 1: team really focused on any kind of element that would
Speaker 1: give a vehicle more speed and control given the limitations
Speaker 1: and requirements of whatever type of racing was involved. Right,
Speaker 1: Formula one, as we have said, specifically has a lot
Speaker 1: of requirements you have to meet, and in fact, it's
Speaker 1: it's a long standing tradition in all forms of racing
Speaker 1: that engineers will look at the rules that racing, uh
Speaker 1: the racing of board has come up with and find
Speaker 1: ways to skirt around them. Yeah, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like Fay logic and certain points, it's it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you said literally this thing, and so we will do
Speaker 1: literally this thing, but kind of the way we want
Speaker 1: to exactly, Yeah, the whole Yeah, exactly the either the
Speaker 1: Fay logic or if you didn't lay out your wish
Speaker 1: exactly right with the Genie and the Dudgeons of Dragons game.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as it turns out, well will specifically call
Speaker 1: out one car where McLaren was able to to, you know,
Speaker 1: take advantage of a little loophole. Now, if we want
Speaker 1: to look at the earliest vehicles, that they were interested in.
Speaker 1: Way back in nineteen sixty five, McLaren and a guy
Speaker 1: named Robin Heard collaborated to design race car called the
Speaker 1: M one B, which would help McLaren take second place
Speaker 1: in the Canadian Grand Prix UH. In nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: McLaren Racing Limited produced a car called the M six
Speaker 1: A that won five of six major races. So, even
Speaker 1: though it was a young company, because of the experience
Speaker 1: of the driver and the experience of the engineers involved,
Speaker 1: they were really competitive early early on. And keep in mind,
Speaker 1: these Formula one racing cars are like crazy expensive. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about a million for that sports car. That's
Speaker 1: nothing compared to a Formula one car. So the following year,
Speaker 1: that same car, the M six A, would win four
Speaker 1: of the six races. In in in nineteen sixty nine, it
Speaker 1: would win eleven races and was it was painted Papaya
Speaker 1: Aren't Yeah. That would later become known as McLaren Orange
Speaker 1: and was adopted as the official call the company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you ever see an orange Formula one car
Speaker 1: pass you by, it's probably from McLaren. Nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: McLaren wins a major race driving a McLaren Ford vehicle
Speaker 1: called the M seven A, which you know, if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen like those designations of one car name and
Speaker 1: then another car name, it usually means one company was
Speaker 1: responsible for building the body of the car and another
Speaker 1: was responsible for the engine. In this case, it was
Speaker 1: a McLaren design on top of a Ford engine, yes,
Speaker 1: the Cosworth DFV. The McLaren team begins to design a
Speaker 1: grand tour vehicle with the I had to compete in
Speaker 1: can am races. Now that's Canadian American races that used
Speaker 1: to be held in North America. They are they've been
Speaker 1: morphed into other types of races since then. Uh. That
Speaker 1: particular vehicle was called the McLaren M six G t
Speaker 1: GT for a Grand Tourer and McLaren himself would tweak
Speaker 1: it so that it could have a road car based
Speaker 1: on its design, because race cars are not strictly speaking legal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he wanted to have a street legal vehicle. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he wanted to have a race car he could drive
Speaker 1: on the road. So really it was all about finding
Speaker 1: what he needed to tweak too, so that the car
Speaker 1: he loved to drive on the racetrack would be the
Speaker 1: one to make it safe enough, yes, yes, for not
Speaker 1: only himself but other passers by exactly. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was this was an interesting little quirk of his personality. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy Bruce McLaren died in a car accident
Speaker 1: while testing that new vehicle, that new road car, and
Speaker 1: uh obviously huge tragedy. The McLaren group stuck together and
Speaker 1: continued to uh to to build cars. Um. Bruce McClaren
Speaker 1: was one of, but not the only race driver that
Speaker 1: they worked with, So they continued to work with other
Speaker 1: drivers and in nineteen seventy one they built the M
Speaker 1: six team that was an indie race car yea, indeed,
Speaker 1: being kind of similar to Formula one in that it's
Speaker 1: open wheel, single seater car. But but the indie cars
Speaker 1: race of course around tracks, yes, yeah, so like those
Speaker 1: long oval tracks like the Indianapolis, the most famous race.
Speaker 1: So if you ever wonder what the big differences are
Speaker 1: between an indie car and a Formula one car, and
Speaker 1: you see them and they look kind of similar, just
Speaker 1: know that they're probably there's probably a few hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars more worth of technology in a Formula one car
Speaker 1: than an indie car. Just because they have more to
Speaker 1: deal with. Yeah, they have to go on those surface streets.
Speaker 1: And so I think of like the Formula one cars
Speaker 1: as you know, like like Kit from Night Rider. It's
Speaker 1: got this crazy amount of technology. Probably no machine guns
Speaker 1: or smoke, you know, bombs or anything like that, probably
Speaker 1: because they're usually looking out for weight. So I guess,
Speaker 1: and you know, someone really dastardly. Right, You've got some
Speaker 1: sort of snidely whiplash character on there. But now the
Speaker 1: cars don't need that. They need, you know, they obviously
Speaker 1: need to worry about weight and speed and power and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, but they don't have to
Speaker 1: have the same kind of levels of crazy technology that
Speaker 1: the Formula one cars do. Now in nine, we're skipping
Speaker 1: ahead a whole decade. John Bernard designs the MP four
Speaker 1: Slash one Formula one car. Now this is the car
Speaker 1: that featured the carbon fiber design we talked about a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier in the show. So during the race
Speaker 1: on Italy's Monza racetrack, driver John Watson crashed his MP
Speaker 1: four Slash one while going a hundred forty miles per hour.
Speaker 1: That's two per hour in case you were wondering. So
Speaker 1: the car was destroyed, totally destroyed, but that carbon fiber
Speaker 1: frame stayed intact and Watson walked away from the crash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bernard's design would go on to be the basis for
Speaker 1: car models all over the world to this success and
Speaker 1: key being the driver a lot exactly once people saw wow,
Speaker 1: this thing was really effective and and and kept this
Speaker 1: this driver safe. Uh, everyone wanted to adopt it because
Speaker 1: it was carbon fiber. And we did a whole episode
Speaker 1: on carbon fiber, so go back and listen to it
Speaker 1: if you don't remember. But super lightweight and super strong. Now,
Speaker 1: in nine, that's when McLaren Group would create a new
Speaker 1: company called McLaren Cars, and this would be their company
Speaker 1: to focus on purely street legal sporting cars. Would be
Speaker 1: a while before they would introduce their first one, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they started saying, well, we've got all this experience and
Speaker 1: developing race cars, but you know, race cars they have
Speaker 1: a very limited use, and we have to build a
Speaker 1: new one essentially every year because and I mean really
Speaker 1: every two weeks. I mean you're you're improving them at
Speaker 1: such a rapid pace that you're continually putting new stuff
Speaker 1: in there. And although you can get a lot of
Speaker 1: money from sponsorships and advertisement and stuff like that. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit less of a pure business deal than
Speaker 1: perhaps just selling fancy cars to fancy people. Also that
Speaker 1: year they would create McLaren Electronic Systems, which was a
Speaker 1: branch of the company to develop and implement electronic fuel
Speaker 1: injection systems for their race cars, which would also eventually
Speaker 1: start creating all kinds of sensors and transmitters and computer
Speaker 1: systems for monitoring and analyzing the minutia of their race
Speaker 1: cars inner workings, which would allow for their racing teams
Speaker 1: to do that continual tweaking and improvement even in the
Speaker 1: middle of a racing season, you know, so that you
Speaker 1: can see what's going on in your car live, minute
Speaker 1: by minute and and improve it once it gets back
Speaker 1: to the shop. And see, this kind of technology is
Speaker 1: the stuff that ends up spilling out into the consumer
Speaker 1: market eventually. So you get you you know, you you
Speaker 1: have a very specific need in the racing world because
Speaker 1: you are you are performing at the peak right You're
Speaker 1: going up against other people who are just as as
Speaker 1: well equipped as you are, and you need every advantage
Speaker 1: you can get. So there's this drive to innovate technology. Well,
Speaker 1: that technology fortunately has the added benefit of helping the
Speaker 1: rest of us out once it filters into the consumer market.
Speaker 1: So that's another reason why this is an important company.
Speaker 1: Well in, McLaren Automotive produces the McLaren F one supercar,
Speaker 1: which was the first road car from McLaren apart from
Speaker 1: the two prototype McLaren M six GT vehicles that were
Speaker 1: produced back when Bruce McLaren was still alive. So this
Speaker 1: is the first time they actually had a road car
Speaker 1: that was available for UH affluent people to purchase. It
Speaker 1: was designed by Gordon Murray and Peter Stevens, and it
Speaker 1: would set the record for the world's fastest production car
Speaker 1: in h at the top speed a top advertised speed
Speaker 1: of two d forty miles per hour, which is three
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. Uh I say advertise speed because there
Speaker 1: were people who got it faster than that. Oh okay.
Speaker 1: The the interior of this car was a little bit strange.
Speaker 1: The driver's seat was kind of in the middle and
Speaker 1: the two passenger seats were to either side but set
Speaker 1: a bit back behind it. Yeah, so you're you know,
Speaker 1: I think of it like imagine you're driving an X
Speaker 1: Wing but you've got two passengers sitting like to your
Speaker 1: left and right just a little bit back. Uh, because
Speaker 1: it does seem like I mean, I'm it's unusual for
Speaker 1: we Americans to look at cars that are driven around
Speaker 1: in England where the driver's side is on the right
Speaker 1: side is just left, but putting it right in the
Speaker 1: middle totally bizarro world. I'm sure it had to do
Speaker 1: with weight specifications and balance or something I try not
Speaker 1: to question. It may have just been the limited space
Speaker 1: inside what used to be Again, like like McLaren was
Speaker 1: known for taking these these designs that were used in
Speaker 1: race cars where usually you had a single seat it
Speaker 1: was just a single seated car, and then to adopt
Speaker 1: that and and change it into a road car meant
Speaker 1: that you had to have at least a two seater.
Speaker 1: You could not do a single seat car. So this
Speaker 1: might have been part of that about, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of shifting things around so it technically is a three
Speaker 1: person car. It did feature an engine that was made
Speaker 1: by bmw UM and a specialized version of it, the
Speaker 1: F one GTR would win the Laman's race with the Lamans,
Speaker 1: which we talked about earlier. There were only sixty four
Speaker 1: of the F one built, and only nine of the
Speaker 1: G t R. Yes. So when we say that they
Speaker 1: produced a sports car, we're talking about this. This is
Speaker 1: these are handbuilt cars. Yeah. This isn't like a Detroit
Speaker 1: auto manufacturing line where you've got the huge line of
Speaker 1: vehicles where you've got ten thousand and you know we're
Speaker 1: talking these are like boutique cars. That's part of the
Speaker 1: reason why they are what I would call prohibitively expensive,
Speaker 1: because I certainly would be prohibited from affording one. In
Speaker 1: Mercedes would begin to build the engines for McLaren race vehicles,
Speaker 1: which that arrangement continues today. So we've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of different engines so far, talking about Ford and BMW,
Speaker 1: but Mercedes has become the the exclusive provider of engines.
Speaker 1: Actually they for a while they were real buddy buddy,
Speaker 1: he will talk about that in a second McLaren engine
Speaker 1: is purchased by a new management team and renamed McLaren
Speaker 1: Performance Technologies, which would again be acquired by another company
Speaker 1: called Lenamar in two thousand three. Its new role is
Speaker 1: to design, develop and test prototype operation for original equipment manufacturing.
Speaker 1: So this is o e M. You may have heard
Speaker 1: that term before. O E M It's used in all
Speaker 1: sorts of industries, not just the automotive industry. We're talking
Speaker 1: about everything. Essentially, what O E M companies do is
Speaker 1: they build the stuff that goes into other companies stuff.
Speaker 1: So if you ever hear of O E M for
Speaker 1: like a smartphone, that might be a company that just
Speaker 1: makes the screen or maybe it just makes the batter
Speaker 1: which components, Yeah, exactly, so that's what that's what now
Speaker 1: McLaren Engine does or McLaren Performance Technologies. It's also really
Speaker 1: confusing if you look up McLaren and you start looking
Speaker 1: at all these different companies. Some of them now no
Speaker 1: longer have really any connection to the original McLaren group. Um,
Speaker 1: but they do still bear the McLaren name, and at
Speaker 1: one point they were part of McLaren Group, So that
Speaker 1: gets a little confusing too. Also, most of them have
Speaker 1: the word technology in the name somewhere. Yeah, a little
Speaker 1: sort of like living in Atlanta and all the peach trees, Yes,
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. Also, Adrian Newi and Neil Oatlely
Speaker 1: designed the McLaren MP four thirteen Formula One car, and
Speaker 1: driver Mika Hackenan would win the Driver's World Championship in
Speaker 1: that car and I'm sure I'm mispronounced his name. Scott
Speaker 1: actually was working with with Chrysler at the time. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how that has plays a part
Speaker 1: because he actually heard all about this. He was telling
Speaker 1: me stories. It was fantastic. So McClaren begins building the
Speaker 1: McClaren Technology Center formerly known as the Paragon Technology Center.
Speaker 1: And it's on a huge site. It's got a five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand square meters which is about five point four
Speaker 1: million square feet out in the UK countryside. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's very pretty. Well. We'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that in a couple of years down
Speaker 1: on the timeline. Um. But first, in the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: Diamler Chrysler would purchase of the McLaren group YEP, and
Speaker 1: the other sixty percent of the company was owned by
Speaker 1: a pair of owners who agreed to vote as a
Speaker 1: unit on any issue the company faced. But that got
Speaker 1: a little more complicated. Those two owners each sold half
Speaker 1: of their share, so think of that as they each
Speaker 1: sold fifteen percent to a holding company which also agreed
Speaker 1: to vote in a block with the two owners, so
Speaker 1: all three of those owners would vote together. They still
Speaker 1: represent six of the overall ownership of the company, and
Speaker 1: then over time all of the owners would buy shares
Speaker 1: back from Daimler until there was a complete separation between
Speaker 1: McLaren and Mercedes, which is also owned by daime Ler.
Speaker 1: By that time, by the way, dame Ler and Chrysler
Speaker 1: would have split up. So what we're trying to say
Speaker 1: here is that corporate relationships, especially in the automotive world,
Speaker 1: are complicated. Yeah, would get to a point where I
Speaker 1: was trying to have this conversation again with Scott. He
Speaker 1: was just curious because once he heard that we were
Speaker 1: going to do this, he had lots of questions. Uh
Speaker 1: and he and I said, you know Diamler Chrysler, So, oh,
Speaker 1: you just mean Dameler now, Oh yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: do write that in my notes. So what does this
Speaker 1: all mean? Well, it means that McLaren would have to
Speaker 1: start paying for engines from Mercedes rather than having them
Speaker 1: provided because they were all part of the same big family.
Speaker 1: So that changed the bottom line for McLaren Group as
Speaker 1: far as developing race cars. But otherwise they've kept on
Speaker 1: with this relationship when Mercedes still purchasing their engines from them.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, McLaren Group creates McLaren Applied Technologies,
Speaker 1: and according to their website, they are built on decades
Speaker 1: of success in Formula one and they're driven by relentless
Speaker 1: desire to win. Applying our knowledge, expertise and experience, we
Speaker 1: deliver real measurable results across industries from motorsport and automotive
Speaker 1: to energy and healthcare, at which point you might say, huh,
Speaker 1: but yeah, when you think about it again, with Formula one,
Speaker 1: it was all about we need to gather data. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's sensory sensory technologies and big data crunching exactly.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to get all the information
Speaker 1: into analyze it and to say, are here's how we performed,
Speaker 1: where are we lagging behind, How can we perform better?
Speaker 1: What what is within our control? And it just meant
Speaker 1: that that the whole company got really, really good at
Speaker 1: this whole gather gathering of data and then the analysis
Speaker 1: of data and then making action points where you could actually,
Speaker 1: you know, turn that into something you could do about it.
Speaker 1: Twe can change and improve, right, Yeah, so they decided, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, we could probably use the same kind
Speaker 1: of approach and other industry lots of stuff. Yeah. Some
Speaker 1: of that lots of stuff includes things like data management, virtualization,
Speaker 1: uh and simulation. And they've done some work in the
Speaker 1: energy sector, helping companies become more energy efficient, looking at
Speaker 1: how they operate and finding ways that they could do
Speaker 1: that better. And they've also worked with healthcare companies to
Speaker 1: find ways to examine patient data to create more personalized,
Speaker 1: customized care. For example, one of their first projects was
Speaker 1: helping to create a cardiac implant sensor that's been used
Speaker 1: in hospitals to monitor recovering in critically ill patients. They've
Speaker 1: also paired up with English rugby teams, among lots of
Speaker 1: other teams to help them perfect their their training and
Speaker 1: their in game actions. Uh. And London's Heathrow Airport takes
Speaker 1: advice from them on more efficiently taxiing airplanes around the
Speaker 1: twer mac um. I guess that's the idea. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: um yeah, yeah, they they do all of this from
Speaker 1: this finished headquarters that that ex paragon. I think Paragon
Speaker 1: was one of those working titles of IT. UM that
Speaker 1: really does look by all reports like Q should be
Speaker 1: at the helm of it uh and and and that
Speaker 1: is in fact, yes, called the McLaren Technology Center. Uh. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: the entire glass encased building is kept within one degree
Speaker 1: of twenty two degrees celsius, which is about seventy two
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, and is completely odorless. Um. It's it's largely
Speaker 1: underground um. And they generate enough energy on site to
Speaker 1: keep themselves going when the grid goes down. No wires
Speaker 1: are visible in any of the offices, and it only
Speaker 1: costs some three hundred million pounds or like you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars in today's exchange rate, just a building,
Speaker 1: so not no big Yeah. If you ever want to
Speaker 1: get a look at what goes on there, just stick
Speaker 1: around because we're gonna tell you about a particular show
Speaker 1: that gives you a real insiders look at what goes on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We'll also try to remember to a post out to
Speaker 1: social like I think Wired or maybe the Verge or
Speaker 1: maybe both have have done photo essays out there and
Speaker 1: it really is forgeous events space. Yeah. So then in
Speaker 1: two eight um the Engine Control Unit, which is the
Speaker 1: electronic car brain and coordinating software system that McLaren had
Speaker 1: been developing for years, became standard issue for all Formula
Speaker 1: One teams. And engine makers. Uh. This this gadget is
Speaker 1: not quite open source, but individual teams are in fact
Speaker 1: allowed to fine tune the software for their own particular
Speaker 1: breaking and torque systems. UM and yeah, I find it
Speaker 1: extra fascinating that they continually have this technology that they
Speaker 1: developed for their own purposes that winds up getting passed
Speaker 1: out to everyone else because it's the best. Um. Like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, it's so good that based on the
Speaker 1: monitoring and analytics that they take there, they're so in
Speaker 1: depth that about every two weeks, five to ten percent
Speaker 1: of their racing cars are brand new based on tweaks
Speaker 1: that they make from from everything from the aerodynamic surfaces
Speaker 1: to the suspension. And that's coming directly from the managing
Speaker 1: director of McClaren Electronic Systems, whose name is Peter van Mennon.
Speaker 1: So uh, pretty legit source that I would say, five
Speaker 1: to the racing cars brand new every two weeks. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of revision right there. Yeah. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: moving forward to two thousand nine, McLaren unveils the design
Speaker 1: for the McLaren twelve Sea sports car, originally called the
Speaker 1: McLaren MP four Dash twelve C. So you know, the
Speaker 1: twelve Sea is much more. I guess spoken tripping lee
Speaker 1: on the tongue. It's a two door sports car with
Speaker 1: an acceleration of zero to sixty two miles pur or
Speaker 1: a hundred kilometers an hour in three point one second.
Speaker 1: That's got some pep. Advertised top speed is two hundred
Speaker 1: seven miles per hour or three hundred thirty three kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour. Again, people have driven it faster than that
Speaker 1: because you know, if you really got to get somewhere. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the McLaren group are the McLaren team introduced the
Speaker 1: McLaren MP four Dash to five, which has a few
Speaker 1: interesting features, including event that the driver could cover up
Speaker 1: just by moving his left leg. This is one of
Speaker 1: those face logic rules kind of things right here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the lot the rule that Lauren is referring to
Speaker 1: is a rule that says that the cars are not
Speaker 1: allowed to have any kind of moving aerodynamic device, like
Speaker 1: you couldn't have a flap that moves on your Formula
Speaker 1: one racing cards against the rules. But there's nothing against
Speaker 1: the rules stating that you couldn't design something in your
Speaker 1: car where if the driver were to move. So, for example,
Speaker 1: let's say that you're going going on a really long
Speaker 1: straightaway on one of these Formula one uh routes. Remember
Speaker 1: this is on public roads, where the Formula one driver
Speaker 1: can just casually move the left leg to cover up
Speaker 1: the vent, thus changing the airflow direction and giving you
Speaker 1: more stability on those long runs, so you can really
Speaker 1: build up speed, and then when you start turning, you
Speaker 1: can move your leg away when you don't need it
Speaker 1: as much because you're moving at a slower speed. There's
Speaker 1: nothing against the rules about that. If it's just the
Speaker 1: driver who's moving, not the car, then it's fine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is one of those loopholes the engineers were
Speaker 1: able to exploit. Yeah, really cool little story. Uh. As
Speaker 1: I read about this, I could just imagine engineers just
Speaker 1: getting really devious. I like to imagine that they're spending
Speaker 1: the evening, like just chatting in a pub sipping some guinness,
Speaker 1: and then someone's like, hey, you know what, just get
Speaker 1: cobblin face on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well. In eleven, McLaren
Speaker 1: builds the McLaren Production Center opposite the technology center. This
Speaker 1: builds the road cars for McLaren as opposed to the
Speaker 1: racing cars. Uh. And keep in mind also this whole
Speaker 1: road car thing still a handmade process. If you've ever
Speaker 1: heard about the luxury cars that come out of England
Speaker 1: like Bentley's, these are things that are literally built by
Speaker 1: hand and if if two parts are not quite working together,
Speaker 1: they will go back and by hand and file one down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is incredibly precise. And it's also why
Speaker 1: they're usually such low production runs, because you can't build
Speaker 1: that many that way. Um, this is where we get
Speaker 1: into one of the more bizarre parts of our story.
Speaker 1: McLaren Animation Media Company partners with Store to produce a
Speaker 1: cartoon series called Tuned, which features Tuned as t O
Speaker 1: O N E D but but but a pun Yes
Speaker 1: obviously on tuning a vehicle which It features two of
Speaker 1: their F one drivers, Jensen Button and Lewis Hamilton's, and
Speaker 1: also a comedian named Alexander Armstrong who's playing a character
Speaker 1: known as Professor m and the purpose of the show
Speaker 1: is to leverage the McLaren brand and get more support
Speaker 1: for the company, as well as create new merchandising opportunities.
Speaker 1: Here's here's kind of like a typical episode has the
Speaker 1: two characters Jensen and Lewis sort of competing against each other.
Speaker 1: They had this this camaraderie. It's kind of a kind
Speaker 1: of a one upping sort of relationship. And meanwhile, Professor
Speaker 1: m is basically telling them not to everything happen, not
Speaker 1: to blow everything up. It's essentially que come on, double
Speaker 1: O seven is essentially the role. By the way, if
Speaker 1: you want to watch any of these, they are up online.
Speaker 1: You can watch I think all of season one and
Speaker 1: s's and two and maybe some of season three. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's fairly entertaining stuff. They tend to be pretty short,
Speaker 1: like three or four minutes per episode. Uh so you
Speaker 1: can blast through a couple of them easy. So check
Speaker 1: that out if you have an already just to kind
Speaker 1: of And this is where you can really get a
Speaker 1: look at the fictional world and the technology center, which
Speaker 1: makes it look like it's part James Bond parts Transformers.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Well, I mean maybe other than the Transformers.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how far off that really is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't more true to life. If McLaren would like to
Speaker 1: invite us to come and check out who works for McLaren,
Speaker 1: let us know, Yeah, we will. We will happily take
Speaker 1: you up on that. They also in two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: unveiled the McLaren P one car, which is a plug
Speaker 1: in hybrid sports car. So this is a partially electric vehicle.
Speaker 1: It has an electric motor, also has an engine, and
Speaker 1: um calling it a hybrid sports vehicle is probably being
Speaker 1: a little you know, um modest. Yeah. Also, if you
Speaker 1: want to buy one, I hope you have one point
Speaker 1: three five million dollars aside, because that's about how much
Speaker 1: it costs. Um. By the way, that's how much the
Speaker 1: base vehicle costs. From what I understand, most people end
Speaker 1: up who actually purchased one of these end up putting
Speaker 1: in so many options that the average price is closer
Speaker 1: to one point six to one point eight million dollars.
Speaker 1: I don't even understand that amount of money. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: That's that's more than I figure I'll ever ever see
Speaker 1: in your life. Yeah. Around the same time, I suppose,
Speaker 1: leading up to McLaren began to incorporate lots of the
Speaker 1: monitoring tech used by their racing teams and partnerships with
Speaker 1: the British Olympic teams. Like in rowing, they have wireless
Speaker 1: sensors to measure what's up with the paddles and the boats.
Speaker 1: And the athletes in real time during courses. The same
Speaker 1: thing for cycling. Yeah, this is where Jonathan would normally
Speaker 1: go off on a tangent about how the the advantages
Speaker 1: some athletes might have with their equipment is perhaps give
Speaker 1: them an unfair edge beyond just their athletic ability. Oh
Speaker 1: but that's that's I mean, I think the Olympic sports
Speaker 1: at this point are just as finicky as Formula one,
Speaker 1: because you know, people are trying to inch that that
Speaker 1: that just extra millisecond, that that hundreds of a second
Speaker 1: advantage to break that. Yeah. People, the athletes are so
Speaker 1: good these days that it really does come down to
Speaker 1: perfecting your technique. I just want to see them all
Speaker 1: in the same rowboat, same style rowboats, so everyone's on
Speaker 1: a level playing field. That's what I want to see.
Speaker 1: But that's a different podcast that doesn't even involve tech stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh In McLaren tested their P one on the Nerva Ring,
Speaker 1: which is a kind of performance car yardstick track in Germany.
Speaker 1: It spans like thirteen miles a k a kilometers, has
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty four turns in it, and is
Speaker 1: used in the industry for kind of privately timed bragging
Speaker 1: rights UH, they claim. McLaren claims that the P one
Speaker 1: did a lap in under seven minutes, thirteen miles and
Speaker 1: under seven minutes, which would officially put it in league
Speaker 1: with the Porsche nine eighteen Spider, which is one of
Speaker 1: the P one's direct competitors. It's another hybrid sports vehicle,
Speaker 1: a million dollar range UH two thousand fourteen. McClaren partners
Speaker 1: with Specialized, which is a bicycle brand, and unveils the
Speaker 1: S Works McLaren Tarmac bicycle, which wasn't the first bicycle
Speaker 1: that McClaren worked on. Mark Cavendish roade on an S
Speaker 1: Works McLaren Venge bicycle to win the Tour de France
Speaker 1: UH and the u c I Road World Championship. It's
Speaker 1: a limited run. Only two fifty of these UH Tarmac
Speaker 1: bicycles are being made and McLaren uses sensors on bicyclists
Speaker 1: to study exactly how the athlete and the bicycle worked together.
Speaker 1: They used that as a guide that information while designing
Speaker 1: the new bicycle, and they've built virtual models in run
Speaker 1: them in simulation and then they would go back and
Speaker 1: tweet the design of the bike and see if that
Speaker 1: would improve the performance. They said that they were actually
Speaker 1: the first people to really consider a bicyclist and a
Speaker 1: bicycle as a as a performance unit. Yes, actual unit,
Speaker 1: as opposed to two separate things. And so I said,
Speaker 1: when you when you sign a car, you don't have
Speaker 1: to factor in the driver's weight or mass because it's
Speaker 1: it's negligible compared to the weight of the vehicle. With
Speaker 1: a bicycle, it's totally the opposite, because the athletes mass
Speaker 1: is likely going to be greater than that of the bike. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's certainly in the case of this bike. So that
Speaker 1: they were really it was really interesting that they took
Speaker 1: the same sort of philosophy of designing a car towards
Speaker 1: how do we make this bike the best bike in
Speaker 1: the world. I totally want one of these, by the way,
Speaker 1: but I doubt I own how much would it cost.
Speaker 1: They're they're priced at about twenty thousand dollars each. They
Speaker 1: are custom fit and painted for each buyer. Good. I
Speaker 1: could get that McLaren orange on there, the yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and well they they also will include in the package
Speaker 1: a bunch of the sporting gear that you would need
Speaker 1: to use. Um and I mean, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: gorgeous stuff. And and so high tech. Just the materials.
Speaker 1: The design incorporates a carbon fiber to reduce weight, and uh,
Speaker 1: these specialized ceramic coated ball bearings to reduce friction in
Speaker 1: the hubs and the crank set. Yeah, it really is
Speaker 1: cool to see exactly how granular they've they've gotten with
Speaker 1: the design. They're looking at the tiniest developments that could
Speaker 1: impact performance. Meanwhile, on the racing side, McLaren has developed
Speaker 1: network systems to transmit data about their cars back to
Speaker 1: their teams during races. They set up antenna around any
Speaker 1: given track or course and the team can use the
Speaker 1: data received to model how the engine is performing, how
Speaker 1: the tires are performing, that the fuel efficiency of the
Speaker 1: car in real time and use that to provide instructions
Speaker 1: to their crews and also of course save all of
Speaker 1: that stuff for further processing and improvements later on. This
Speaker 1: is it just blows my mind when I read about this.
Speaker 1: The more I read about the more I think like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this sounds like it would not be out of place
Speaker 1: in a discussion about NASA, right, I Mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: how how exacting we're getting here. This year, McLaren also
Speaker 1: announced the McLaren six fifty s a new sports car
Speaker 1: based on the McLaren twelve see car, but it has
Speaker 1: some new parts to it, so it's depending upon whom
Speaker 1: you ask. Some people call it a brand new car
Speaker 1: and some people say it's a modified twelve C. I
Speaker 1: guess it all depends upon your point of view in
Speaker 1: the community. Meanwhile, they recently signed up to be part
Speaker 1: of the UK's Your Life program, which is this uh
Speaker 1: STEM Science Technology Engineering and I always forget the end
Speaker 1: math thank you educational and or economic initiative that's meant
Speaker 1: to get kids interested in jobs in scientific fields, which
Speaker 1: is pretty awesome. It is um I mean also especially
Speaker 1: for them, their engineers have to come from somewhere, that's true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have. They have a vested interest in promoting STEM.
Speaker 1: They certainly do. And rumor has it from McLaren Applied
Speaker 1: Technologies Vice president Jeff McGrath, nonetheless, who said in a
Speaker 1: May interview with Verge that they will be teaming up
Speaker 1: with and I quote one of the best known consumer
Speaker 1: electronics companies in the world on wearable tech that will
Speaker 1: be made available to the public starting I watch anyone.
Speaker 1: I I just wild guess that's gonna be Apple. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean it might not, yeah, like like it could
Speaker 1: be for a brand that will not have anything to
Speaker 1: do with McLaren, Like McLaren might not be the name
Speaker 1: for this product. But yeah, I mean see it makes
Speaker 1: sense because the more I looked into this company, particularly
Speaker 1: the style that they have, Oh yeah, they have such
Speaker 1: gorgeous design. It really reminded me a lot of Apple.
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at the if you look
Speaker 1: at the McLaren headquarters and then you look at the
Speaker 1: Apple headquarters, uh, then you you can see that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the design philosophies that overlap. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be very much at home hanging out together.
Speaker 1: I think so. Well, you might say that an iPhone
Speaker 1: just looks like it moves fast, and a McLaren car
Speaker 1: just looks like it would produce beautiful music, particularly if
Speaker 1: that music is room broom. I will also try to
Speaker 1: remember to share that there was a video on that
Speaker 1: UM track of of that p one going around it
Speaker 1: and it is it is some sound. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: some gorgeous sound. Well, we will definitely try and share
Speaker 1: as much of this as we can. It was fun
Speaker 1: to look at a company that that really covered something
Speaker 1: that as much as I joked in the beginning, I
Speaker 1: really didn't know that much about I actually had to
Speaker 1: do a lot of research just to kind of make
Speaker 1: sure I was talking I knew what I was talking about,
Speaker 1: and it gave me a new appreciation for our buddies
Speaker 1: over at Car Stuff. Yeah. Again, if you have not
Speaker 1: checked out their show, you definitely need to do that
Speaker 1: because it's a a great podcast. And also, I mean,
Speaker 1: they really do talk a lot about technologies during the
Speaker 1: course of their show, so especially if you enjoyed, say
Speaker 1: our Transmission episode a while back or anything like that,
Speaker 1: they go they go deep into that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: all the time, exactly. Yeah. And again, if you ever
Speaker 1: have a question about anything related to cars, Scott Benjamin
Speaker 1: is your man, trust me. Yeah, even if you do
Speaker 1: not sit next to him in an office. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So guys, if you have any other suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, whether it is a company, a personality,
Speaker 1: just a particular kind of technology you've always wanted to
Speaker 1: know how it worked, let us know. Send us a message.
Speaker 1: Our email is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler,
Speaker 1: or handle as tech stuff HS w and again. If
Speaker 1: you want to check out car stuff, go to car
Speaker 1: Stuff show dot com and we'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and bathans of other topics.
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