Currently reading: McLaren 12C supercar axed

Company officials confirm the 616bhp 12C will no longer be sold, due to the success of McLaren's new 650S supercar

McLaren has announced it will be ending production of the 12C supercar.

The company says that in light of the success of its new model, the 650S, it has ended production of the standard 12C. An official statement says the move "represents a natural evolution of our model line-up." Around 3500 units of the 12C have been sold since its launch in 2011. Following the launch of the 650S, the 12C was priced at £176,000.

Current 12C owners are being offered a free technology upgrade from June, retro-fitting new elements like Active Aero software, a drag reduction system mode which lowers the car's rear wing, and improvements to the 12C's Android-based infotainment system. As well as the free upgrade, two new options to fit a reversing camera and a DAB radio are also being offered at a cost.

McLaren says it already has six months' worth of orders for the 650S, which made its world debut at the Geneva motor show earlier this year in both coupé and Spider forms. 

The 650S blends the 12C with elements from the firm's new P1 hypercar. Using McLaren's turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 engine, the 650S gets 641bhp and 500lb ft of torque. That's enough to give the 650S a 0-62mph sprint time of 3.0 seconds and a top speed of 207mph. 

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TS7 5 April 2014

The main thing is...

...now the '12C has been axed there is a little more room to manoeuvre for the forthcoming 'P13' in both price and performance terms, certainly in terms of an uprated 'S' version a few months after the initial launch. Anyhoo, I still prefer the looks of the '12C over the 650S.
Fungus40 4 April 2014

Change was needed

It was inevitable that something would be done, given the immense investment McLaren have put into their road cars division and the rather disappointing sales performance of the MP4-12C, it never really took off after the initial tranche of orders in the first year.
To sell supercars like these customers buy with their hearts not their minds, it's not a particularly rational decision to buy a car like this and for all that the 12C was good, it was too mundane against the exotica and history of the other supercar brands. Hopefully McLaren are now moving in the right direction
GeToD 4 April 2014

No surprise

This was no surprise given the improvements found in the 650S and the pricing of which gave better value than the 12C. The real question will be is: can they differentiate the 650S from the upcoming P13 in terms of real world performance given that they share the same tub, suspension, engine (although detuned but I did say "real-world" performance) and styling. Interesting situation.