FIRST LOOK: McLaren P1 Drift Car – Mad Mike’s Rotary-Swapped ‘MadMac’!

I've always wondered why they call you mad mik this is madmac the McLaren p one final boss and very possibly the wildest drift car ever to shred a tire what started as a not entirely sober chat between king of sideways Mad Mike wet and race bred Supercar Specialists Dean lanzante has become the most insane project car build of 2024 so here is Mr mad himself in the lanzante workshops to explain the story so far the crazy thing is is this all like evolved from a conversation when I first meet Dean and we were talking about Tamia radio control cars from like the 80s it's crazy that just a simple discussion like that has executed into the discussion got deeper and deeper into what would your next craziest what would what's the next dream build for you you know Goodwood Festival of speed for me is Priority One on the calendar when it comes to all the events from the pro drift competitions the demonstrations the you know the film shoots we do with Red Bull um and just really just trying to inspire the world like goodward is number one for me the engagement with the fans and like just the people the drivers the all the different genres of motorsport for me I get to I'm as much of a fan as I am out there ripping and putting on a show so that discussion with Dean we discovered that well he mentioned like what what would that next dream build be yeah and uh for me going from like the Lamborghini project to do a McLaren and really telling the name of Bruce McLaren most people McLaren of course is the highend supercars but Bruce was a a kiwi Legend another you know kid chasing dreams at a young age come from a little New Zealand which half people don't even know as a country around the world um so there's a few stories I wanted to you know Goodwood circuit you know of course as the track where Bruce unfortunately lost his life so there's a few stories I want to tell through you know my time of being a to build this and entertain and you got that proud kiwi bird on the front of this and it just that brings me into the first thing that struck me when I walked in and saw this car is the quality of the fit and finish that you've executed on something that's it's born to be gnarly to go sideways to be like abused and beat on but like your panel gaps your headlights your carbon fiber work is all stunning like all the guys involved with this build must be so proud of that yeah I mean the I guess the biggest challenge is keeping it to that worldclass you know like I say that Goodwood is for me and many is the biggest most historic prestigious Motorsport event on the planet so when you're building something to entertain and showcase what you bring as a team and your guys we want to execute the best the crazy thing is is that with this buildmate in a 100 days at our shop the madland back at Hampton Downs the deadline for this has been amazing I should just explain that we are literally in the workshop at lanzante a couple of days out from Goodwood Festival of speed so if you can hear some kind of tinkering going on behind us that's because they're working on cars which are so secret we can't even show you but don't worry about that I mean let's just get sucked into some of the details well I want to show I want to show the the main detail and that was changing the heart so when it came to a 100 day build we were two to 3 weeks into it and I was still scratching my head on what to do with this McLaren you know of course an amazing motor they come in these things 3.8 still had the V8 in it still the V was perfectly so lante and the team here did a fabulous job of grafting a P1 GTR and a 650s McLaren because I wanted the monoco out of the 650s because I wanted the FIA roll cage I wanted the safety so I can really push the extremes and execute Absolut Madness driving and this thing so they grafted the two cars together two perfectly good cars and really when it showed up it was like I was actually so nervous when it showed up to my shop in New Zealand like weird a cat and because it's obviously you know to good to rip apart almost it was it was like a perfect example but then my vision was so clear and I guess also with a de crazy timelines it was like we just had to get into it and like I say we're two to three weeks into this build a lot of the phone calls I'm making people are already yeah we've done this and we've done that and we've got this bolt-on turbo kit and that and we can make 1200 horsepower and like there's just too many we've done and as soon as someone's saying we've done I'm just wanting to hang up the phone and um we don't build Lego kits at the mad lab and for us it's about really creating something unique that we're proud of like never stop challenging for ourselves and um we'll take you to the heart of this thing now so I love that normally if we were going to do like show people the engine we'd be like right let's work out how we get the engine cover off it's kind of no need to here you you can see most of the stuff I mean you've got obviously this ginormous Garrett turbo but what really is the crazy part was pulling the V8 out and doing the engine swap so um as I say rotary is our knowledge um so we've built a full bullet 20b so it's a three rotor yeah um it's got individual throttle bodies and then it goes through obviously all the intake the plenum comes around Garrett turbo like everything handmade that's because like see from your MX5 your RX7 your I guess Mazda 3S all those Mazdas you're so you got so much knowledge in this power plant yeah I guess figuring out how to put one of those in a McLaren is one less job than working with an engine you're not so familiar with oh even down to the wiring and the ECU you know we we just took the steering wheel off this car at the shop was one of the first things we did and with then we couldn't even start the car it just comes up no steering wheel and we just could not even tell the ECU to like fire and we were like man if we're doing film shoots and demonstrations and we're having troubles like that you know a lot of the film shoots you got helicopters in the sky waiting calling action and if we've got fault codes comol Lo delete come on so we've literally rewired this entire car the brain of this thing is now htech which is what we run in all our cars that coming out of Australia um and now we were able to program and tell everything what to do right down to even the shifter I'll open this up now so we' we've put a um gearbox shifter so we took the pedal shift off the steering wheel because obviously with drifting there like another mod was obviously all the steering and having to get 900° of rotation so we needed a stick shift so the shifter that's in here now is literally off my well not even mine it's off my son's simulator at home and your four son's gone to do some sin racing and gone he actually my shift he came down to the mad lab and was like where is the shifter off my simulator I was like oh it's in the McLaren it's in Mad Mack he's like can I get it back cuz I'm doing a drift competition tonight I'm like uh we've kind of pulled it apart dad got to go Works sorry yeah so a P1 obviously originally would have had no gear lever in the middle and you've now got two levers in the middle so one's a shifter is that the other one hydraulic hand hydraulic handbrake yeah so you can see we've got another uh caliper that we've mounted so we've had to modify the knuckle um and then yeah so the Hub and all that design so we've been able to essentially set that apart so I set up my background was Motocross and so Motocross you know you got a front brake and a back brake so essentially of drifting and drift cars I set up exactly the the same so my foot break is we can still control it 50/50 or whatever with a bias adjuster but it's actually I have it set to 99% as foot break is on the front and um and then you can untick the rear if I need rear breake I've got the hydraulic handbrake it's kind of funny cuz like a P1 was originally one of the hybrid Holy Trinity this has obviously got no electrical assistance anymore but it kind of is a hybrid because it's like part P1 part 650s part Mazda and then just part like the darkest parts of your brain all kind of Fe together to give you like I was saying before this car actually has the knuckles off my RX7 so with part shop Max we've developed a knuckle that gets you know all the right acen um and lock that we need we've you know modified the the rack itself made our own tire rods lower control up control like there's there's a lot of work man in 100 days we've actually it's been fortunate enough that we've been able to document this um through the process I mean there's so many details to pick up on but I just want to go down here we can take this cover off tell me about the exhaust Arrangement what's going on with these you've got these pipes you've got your waste Gat so these two pipes here are your waste Gates uh which are here Plum them for the turbo and then your two pipes out the back is literally the hot side of the exhaust and which of these spits more fire um pretty equal really this one this one's popping flames on full Boost yeah and then this one's popping a lot of flames on full Boost and desell and just all the time really yeah I mean just the again the quality of the workmanship even where you can't quite see it I mean this is all going to be enveloped in Smoke most of the time so most people won't see it as it Roars by but just all the Billet in here and the the it's all custom with Mite logo it's for me cars are artwork right it's not about the value of the platform but it's about the art that you create with it the longer you just stand and look is the more you'll notice are you going to point out this detail on the washes now cuz this is fantastic isn't it the little so yeah even even the fender washers we've got they've been um yeah well machine little rotors so essentially the same because Blair that does all our CNC he does our rotor like modifies the internals inside the motor so he's actually got the exact same shape and made um a little fender washers you know even the body kit alone so Muran in Japan um from going up there and competing you know this was a two-e process which to some people was years to design and develop a body kit and we 3D scan the car uh we sat down for about 3 hours and you know for me from designing the he and then the getting the proportions right of like how wide you want the body aesthetically and also for handling of performance so from yeah the wheels to the body kit there just I don't know I still can't even believe that we've done it in 100 days we'll hear what went wrong with the build from Mike in a moment while we were down at lanzante I grabbed a chat with the boss himself Dean to get his side of mad Max's story right at the Genesis of this project you had to create the basis the donor car you know that would morph into what's behind you so can you just talk us through how that came about I mean initially we obviously spoke about P1 GTR P1 GTR has got a lot of componentry that wouldn't benefit itself to a drift car so hybrid systems and active suspension active arrow and and there is some economics involved with this as well the cost of tearing apart a g no budget for this surely well that went to Pieces later for sure definitely um so so it's decided we'd need a sequential gearbox for sure that's going to help in this it was going to be passive suspension um and then we used a tub off of a a 650 Baseline tub is the same as a P1 tub but we wanted a roll cage in it so we used a GT3 roll cage and the body panels from a GT3 of the front wings and lower front bumper just because they're actually wider than P1 and we knew we were going to have some steering lock issues or Mike was going to have some steering lock issues later on so the lanan side was to not literally give a P1 but to give something that was leaning towards what was going to be required uh when when it got to newand right now of course what you sent them was this quite beautiful white box fresh kind of you know lante spech a blank canvas yeah ex a blank canvas exactly with a twin turbo V8 in the back Y what on Earth went through your head when this rolled off the low loader with a rotary the back of it I I'd obviously been briefed that this was happening and um we we wanted to give a running car just so we knew everything works you there's a lot of electronics and stuff like that just to ensure that there was at least a good starting point and and the early discussions were that it would be a V8 still um so it was it moved quite rapidly into the rotary so we knew what was coming um um and obviously I'd seen images and stuff but I think people when they see this a goodw would also understand is it nothing quite prepares you for visually what it is when you see it in the flesh you guys at lanzante one of the things your most famous most infamous for celebrated around the world is taking the world's ultimate track only cars and making them road legal not this one so madmac won't be drifting the M25 anytime soon which is probably fair enough given how completely Bonk as it is but it very nearly didn't make it all the way back from New Zealand to England at all engine making so much boost that it bent the butterfly valves in the throttle bodies to a taco shape yep so if it's bending make it stronger so we literally pulled the throttle bodies apart um we got some solid bar chromoly bar and actually sliced it like salami so we've made them from .9 mm brass butterflies they're now 1.6 and out of cromly even when we did that we probably didn't need to but also the shaft those butterflies are on Al was also brass so we've made a full one piece Chromo shaft as well so no more tacoed butterflies okay good news um now we should say I don't think we've covered the power yet so it's a th000 horsepower yep I mean well we're we could wind a lot more into to it if we wanted to but there's it's got It's a balance you know you're going have so much power that all you're doing is burning rubber and actually going nowhere and I guess with drifting a lot of people just look at drifting and think it's a car that's rear wheel drive a lot of horsepower no grip but like we want as much grip as possible the you know every time you hit that same corner to keep that faar and adrenaline flow you want to be faster have to get that that fair level so we're trying to get as much grip as possible at the same time with this configuration we know you know we're only running 19 20 PB boost and we're yeah just sh 1,000 H spare at the wheels which is incredible out of a little two 2 L so it's 2,000 CC three RoR and very appropriate for a P1 because it was always as near a dam it th000 horsepower back in the day with the hybrid system okay problem number two your engine generates so much heat it melts your exhaust manifold y again what do you do we we just use some stronger like steam pipe pretty much to make the manifold more braces um and yeah just stronger build it build it harder build it stronger then you had problem number three engine makes so much power it tries to twist the whole subframe of the car yep B the chassis yep that's that's how that's how crazy this thing is so um what about um you had water in the gearbox actuator at one point so it wasn't selecting I don't know I mean that was just a factory item you you think a British Supercar be weatherproof wouldn't you I mean the Summers that we have over here yeah I in New Zealand we to be honest we have pretty much the same Four Seasons in one day it goes from Sun to rain and yeah it was just one of those things and um fortunate part about that was our hero shoot so we you know had invested in the massive media crew to come out and capture this thing we had done a couple of shakedowns we were happy with it and then roll it out of the shade I got to click it in gear and then just no signal and it was just a simple yeah that actuator which is a very expensive but the gear lever itself which you nicked from your son's gaming rig um that's 3D printed and when you first did the Shakedown it like came clean off in your hands sh well again you know like technology and people creating new parts and everyone you know not just us in this industry but people that are creating the parts always trying to you know push the limits and see what's what's you know achievable and with the 3D printing you know some of the guys are 3D printing titanium now um and unfortunately the stuff that we used the 3D printing the gearbox cross me wasn't quite strong enough and I just ripped it straight out plus I'm pretty Savage when I'm in this car and try you know to get this thing to go sideways you have to be pretty tough on it I mean there's no one probably in the world that's more experienced at looking out the side window than you but talk about the level of commitment that this thing needs like even for you is this a scary car to drive oh it's definitely a very scary it's a very weird sensation driving this because this is probably well this definitely feels like the safest car like that we have built inside it feels so safe however it's so freaking fast and then the feeling of having the front wheels so close well they're like most of the drift cars our wheels are in front of us right so and then you got the fire because this car is so white on full lock the wheels are coming into where almost like your Cal muscles so you're sitting so far up the car with all this overhang on the back so the sense I'm still learning like we've only done what two or three shakedowns and then you've got to go out in front of like 200,000 people at goodward and put on a show I mean it's no pressure is I'm I thrive on the pressure even my son says me he's like Dad how do you not get nervous you know I'm like I don't know if if I don't show the nerves I'm still nervous inside and I believe if you're not nervous then they're all ain't big enough find something better crazier to do that you get that little fear and adrenaline you know so like I said we're bu cars to entertain not to show off any wealth or prove any well I haven't got any wealth cuz I just got a lot of cars so I'm rich in cars I think it's a fantastic project I can't wait to hear it I can't wait to see the Flames that are going to come out of here and um hopefully feel it because I see you have got a passenger seat yeah yeah yeah we've quite like to come along for a ride that's the that's probably Priority One of every one of my cars has to have a passenger seat that is the best part of my job is being able to take people for hot laps so they can experience my adrenaline and I know if I'm scared then they're probably scared too here's how you know that Mike and his mad lab team have every faith in their build just two days before the cars due to headline the 2024 Goodwood Festival of speed he's willing to give it a full send Shakedown on the notoriously quick Goodwood motor circuit just down the Road from the Duke of Richmond's driveway and he wasn't kidding when he said he likes bringing a passenger along for the ride noise limits what noise limits [Music] shouting over a triple rotor monster on straight pipes was pointless so I just enjoyed the ride but what was incredible was just how slick everything felt inside the car I thought it would be brutal and Furious and feel like you were getting beaten up but the Rotary engin Zips through the revs amazingly smoothly and there's so much power it lears stick the rears in sixth gear as easily as it does in first it'll also recover from heroic angles thanks to that custom Mazda steering lock kit but scary no it was just hilarious mad in the best possible way okay time to go r oh it's not mad it's [Music] absolutely siar love [Music] wow actually looking out the front window for once instead of the side window right come on one last fix then let's go oh what A noise yeah that should have killed the noise limit I think what a machine

Channel: Top Gear

Views: 325,472

Keywords: Top Gear, mclaren, drift, drift car, drift build, formula drift, p1 mclaren, mclaren p1, mclaren drift, mclaren p1 drift, mclaren p1 snow drift, mad mike mclaren drift, drifting mclaren, mclaren p1 gtr, mad mike mclaren, red bull drift car, drift cars, drift a car, mclaren rotary, mad mike drift car, lexus rc f drift car, mclaren f1, mclaren super series, mad max drift, mad mike drift, mclaren 570s

Id: qgIhcSDq2hk

Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2024