New McLaren supercar worth 170.000 GBP crashes outside factory Gates. That was the headline of the October 14 Chicester Herald article that caught my attention this weekend.
Last week my wife and I were in England and I took that newspaper with me to read at home. The article stated that a Mclaren MP 4-12C type had crashed during a pre-delivery test drive. The car in the photo with this article is a supercar that Mclaren had built in 1997 and with the new member, the MP 4-12C, they want to compete with the Italian brand Ferrari. But how could the test driver lose control of this car? I know the situation on the ground well. There is a typical English roundabout which, among other things, gives access to the road that leads to the entrance of the McLaren Technology Centre. This car had just come from there and when it merged into the roundabout, the car became uncontrollable. Even with such a supercar you can't drive very fast there. At one time I thought of some bizarre experiences I had had myself in the eighties. In The Hague, on a road that goes around the Peace Palace. With different cars. To start with a newly purchased Alfa Romeo Bertone. The journey from Amsterdam had gone reasonably well, but things went wrong at the Peace Palace. Without giving a sign I lost control of the car in one go and it was turned 180 degrees. A closer inspection showed that the rubbers of the wishbones to which the rear axle was attached were completely worn out. This could cause the rear axle to give a sudden movement, causing the car to end up backwards. The same thing happened to me with another car in almost the same location. This time the tires turned out to be way underinflated. After the tire pressure was increased, the problem was solved. In yet another car, which was equipped with rear leaf springs, almost the same thing happened, but I was able to correct the car. Here the spring slings through which the so-called U-bolts stick that keep the thing in place were not tightened enough. All three cars had their flaws, but why did it always happen there and not somewhere else? That may have been due to the angle of the road surface. Not a single road is built level because otherwise the rainwater cannot flow off. The road surface always slopes to the left or right. This can amplify the car's response when accelerating or braking, causing the car to skid and cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle.
Photo and text: Jacques van den Bergh