“McLaren Readying Ferrari F430 Adversary” or so says the good folks at CarScoop. This has been in the wings, and on again/off again (depending on the relationship between McLaren & Mercedes) for awhile.

My first thought was, “Yeah, McLaren wants it to build a Ferrari F430 adversary, but they got a long way to go to beat that, given that Ferrari has been kicking their ass around the world for the past nine years .”

Look, I’ve got nothing against the McLaren F1; very impressive car in every respect (although Mario Andretti said the car was “aerodynamically spooky”, and the last time he said something like that was when he was racing CanAm, and THAT GUY knows whence he speaks). It’s just that lately, McLaren have been showing themselves to be struggling to maintain 4th place in the constructors championship, being stomped by the likes of Renault & BMW, let alone being able to challenge the likes of Ferrari.

Anyway, the main details come from Autocar in the U.K which basically boil down to this:

The new car, codenamed P11, will be in showrooms by March 2010, the official unveiling is slated for autumn 2009. The P11 will be available in both open-top and hardcore versions of the base model. It will be noticeably lighter and more compact than the Ferrari F430. The Mclaren P11 will be powered by a 550bhp V8 engine, built by Mahle (who bought out the old Cosworth business) in Northamptonshire, possibly based on an existing Mercedes unit. The Spider version of the P11 is expected to appear in March 2011.

OK Ron, let’s see what you can do.

Back in March I wrote a post listing the 10 Fastest Cars in the World. It was hugely popular (and still is,) but I’ve received so many comments telling me that the list isn’t accurate anymore. I plan to do another comprehensive post on this in the future, but for now here is a quick update on the fastest production cars in the world, ranked by top speed. On the last post, I also received a lot of comments about cars such as the Lingenfelter Corvette being faster. Just like the last list, this is only for production cars:

SSC Ultimate Aero

Top Speed: 256 mph

Horsepower: 1183

Torque: 1094lbs

On September 13th, 2007, the SSC Ultimate Aero broke the official top speed world record, traveling 256.18 mph down a closed section of a Washington State highway. Impressive, considering the Ultimate Aero’s engine is only a twin-turbo V8 - half the size and turbo count of the Veyron below. Continue Reading…

VCars brings up a list of the top 10 fastest production cars in the world, ranked by top speed. I’ll go over the list briefly, but be sure to visit VCars’ list for more info and pictures. All the cars you would expect are on the list, ranked from fastest to slowest (though calling any of these cars slow is blasphemy.) We start the list with the king of fast.

Update: I’d like to clarify that this list only includes production cars. I’ve had a lot of comments mentioning the Lingenfelter Corvette, etc being faster, but that ultra-fast Vette is not in production. I’d also like to clear up that this list was created on March 30th, 2007. The SSC Ultimate Aero has since broken the record as the fastest production car in the world, and I plan to address this in my next list. Be sure to subscribe to the AutomoBlog RSS Feed to stay up-to-date.

Bugatti Veyron

Top Speed: 252.2 mph

1001 Horsepower

No surprises here, the fastest and most powerful production car ever makes the top of the list. I wonder when Koenigsegg will decide to take the #1 position and beef up the CCX.

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The Discovery Channel ran an excellent short video of the History of the McLaren F1. The F1 is still one of the most amazing vehicles ever made, and has been around for over a decade.

The car features a 6.1-litre 60° V12 BMW V12 engine and it was conceived as an exercise in creating what its designers hoped would be considered the ultimate road car. Only 100 cars were manufactured, 64 of those were street versions, 5 were LMs, 3 were GTs and the rest were GTR models

Check out the video:

Tiff from Fifth Gear does a comparison drive of the McLaren F1 and Ferrari Enzo. I would love a chance to drive either one of these (preferably the McLaren.) Keep in mind that the McLaren is over a decade old now, is is still being compared head-to-head with the newest ultimate Ferrari. Amazing, if you ask me.

McLaren’s F1 supercar is still commonly regarded as the best supercar ever made; and it was made over 10 years ago. Since then the company hasn’t done much (as far as road cars) except team up with Mercedes to produce the SLR supercar. A great car, but certainly not even close to the F1 in terms of excitement. Will we see another great supercar from McLaren in the next few years? Possibly.

McLaren has worked in close co-operation with the school and students of the Transport Design course at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin to get an insight into a McLaren super car of tomorrow.The students completed a dream project by designing a future McLaren concept car as part of their final year project.The common objective for all the students was to design a mid-engined super sports car capable of more than 320 km/h (or 200 mph) that offered the technological excellence of Formula 1 for the road, with unparalleled dynamic and aerodynamic performance.

Gallery and more information after the jump…

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