McLaren: The W1 Hypercar with Fixed Seats
So, McLaren isn’t the only hypercar maker out there using fixed seats in their latest masterpiece. Rivals like LaFerrari and Aston Martin Valkyrie are also jumping on the fixed seat bandwagon. But here’s the kicker with McLaren’s W1 – they didn’t just toss fixed seats in there to look cool or charge customers more for fancy seat padding. Nope, the seats are fixed for a reason – to keep this bad boy as light and aerodynamic as possible. A recent video from McLaren spills the beans on why these seats don’t budge, and it all comes down to the hypercar’s fancy new Aerocell carbon-fiber chassis.
The McLaren engineering team knew they had to go big or go home when it came to hitting those weight and drag-coefficient goals with the W1. So, when it was time to cook up the Aerocell chassis, they were ready to make whatever changes necessary. According to Andy Sylvester-Thorne, McLaren’s head of body structures, the aero story was key to this project. And in order to shrink down the Aerocell in all the right places, fixed seats were a must. Not really sure why this matters, but hey, it’s all about that aero, right?
Let’s dive a bit deeper into this fixed seat situation. With a fixed seat in place, McLaren was able to not only tighten up the front structure but also tweak the height and angle of the A-pillars and roof for better aerodynamics. By streamlining things up front, McLaren could slide those front axles back even further. They even poke out through pre-built holes in the carbon fiber front impact pillars, shortening that dash-to-axle ratio and giving the aero a nice boost. All the nitty-gritty details are laid out in the video starting around the 1:10 mark.
Now, before Sylvester-Thorne hopped on the W1 train, he was busy designing the chassis for the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Working with the legendary Gordon Murray on that project, he knows a thing or two about sweating the small stuff to get it just right. And it looks like that same level of attention to detail went into the McLaren W1. So, when are we going to get that epic W1 versus Ferrari F80 showdown? Maybe it’s just me, but I’m itching to see that race go down.
