Pages from a McLaren Special Operations brochure have been leaked by our friends over at Jalopnik. They appear to show the next special-order McLaren MP4-12C, named the McLaren Project Alpha. Instead of a complete bespoke build, like we saw with the X-1 recently, Project Alpha cars will be six special editions with a number of modest upgrades fitted to the standard design.
The upgrades detailed in the brochure include gloss black paint for the front splitter, louvered front wings like those we saw on the HS edition’s, a gloss black roof, a black painted rear decklid, a gloss black painted GT3-style bumper, carbon fiber rear fender vents and gloss black light weight diamond cut rims.
Inside, the brochure reveals a black alcantara cluster cover, black alcantara steering wheel grips and carbon fiber accents. Just six will be produced, each with an individual MP4-12C Project Alpha badge signifying the unique chassis number. The renderings show gray, orange and white models although exterior colouring remains unclear.
Jalopnik reveals that the cars were ordered by McLaren Chicago for six customers. The cars don’t get any performance modifications, everything is cosmetic at the moment.
As we know from bugatti, “special editions” means “not selling well”. Which is what you get from a boring car.
And, by he way, don’t be fooled by “alcantara this” and “alcantara that”:
“Alcantara is composed of about 68% polyester and 32% polyurethane”
(source wikipedia)
that’s plastic to me.