When the last car your company produced was widely considered to be the greatest road car ever made, the McLaren F1, you have some big shoes to fill. While the F1 was designed to have no peers, the MP4-12C takes aim directly at the Italian and German competition with an innovative new all-carbon fiber chassis and a turbocharged V8 developed in-house at McLaren. Tuned for maximum low-end torque, the MP4 can bring all 442 ft-lbs. to bear at a low 2,000 RPM, which means the MP4 has rocketship launch characteristics. One look at the huge, deep side inlets and the high-mount exhaust bores should tell you the new McLaren means business. Lewis Hamilton thinks so; McLaren’s ace F1 driver likes the MP4-12C so much he appears as the voice of the car in Pixar’s computer-animated film Cars 2.

The engine compartment is lined with gold. The driver’s seat is located in the center of the car. More than twenty years after it was first introduced, it’s still the fastest naturally aspirated car in the world. That’s why when most people are asked to name the greatest road car ever built, the McLaren F1 is what instantly springs to mind. It should; the F1 was designed and built to be just that, with no expense spared and no compromises made. The brainchild of Gordon Murray, a renowned designer of innovative racecars, the McLaren F1 defied conventional thinking by pioneering such technologies as a full carbon fiber monocoque chassis weighing just 220 lbs., a first for a road car. Backed up by a highly modified BMW V12 making 627 horsepower, the F1 is as fast as it was expensive—nearly a million dollars when new. While being fast would have been enough to drop jaws, the F1 is also an eminently drivable car—so much so that the F1, which was never intended to race at all, was modified slightly and went on to win the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans race outright. Only 64 were made, so don’t expect to see one in your nearest used car lot.

Is the standard McLaren F1 too common for you? The F1 GT may be the answer to your problem, as just three were produced as Le Mans homologation specials. As the briefest glance will tell you, the primary change from regular (“short-tail”) F1 to the GT variant is the long tail and improved aerodynamics. That’s because the F1 was originally intended not to race, but rather to be the ultimate road-going supercar. It accomplished that in spades, but when it was finally decided to race the F1 at Le Mans, testing showed that to achieve the high speeds required and be competitive, the GT would require the aerodynamic improvements. The Le Mans variant was known as the GTR, and it managed to secure second and third place at the 1997 race, proving that the modification program was largely a success. The road-going version was also a success from an enthusiast’s standpoint—an incredibly rare version of an already superlative car—perhaps the closest a lucky driver can come to taking one of McLaren’s incredible race cars out onto a public road. Or, more appropriately, a track with a straight long enough to explore the F1 GT’s top speed, if you dare.

Gordon Murray’s vision in creating the McLaren F1 was to create the ultimate road car, not to develop a vehicle for racing (similar to Ferruccio Lamborghini’s goals in starting his own automobile company). However, unlike Lamborghini, Murray cut his teeth designing some of the most famous Formula 1 cars in the world. It’s perhaps no surprise then that when the F1 hit the streets, lots of people wanted to see what it could do on a racetrack. Murray reluctantly agreed to create the GTR, a competition-only variant of the road car. Little had to be done, as the F1 was essentially a racer already—cooling ducts were added, and a wing was bolted onto the back. With these modifications, the F1 GTR won Le Mans outright—the first time a new marque had ever won the race on their first try. By 1997, however, the competition was fiercer and McLaren was forced to modify the GTR further. The “long-tail” version has better downforce, with completely revised bodywork and a de-stroked engine for better longevity. This car, #43, managed third place in the 1997 Le Mans race, behind a Porsche prototype and another F1 GTR. After 1997, BMW pulled out and the F1 GTR program ended, leaving behind an incredible racing legacy for a car that was never intended to race.

The first McLaren GT race car since the F1 GTR finished production in 1997 the new 12C GT3 is based on the MP4-12C McLaren carbon-fiber chassis production sports car. The 12C GT3 is designed to allow any driver to reach the car’s performance limit. In conjunction with CRS Racing, development has been pursued with the level of detail equal to that of an F1 car. In fact, the 12C borrows technology from F1, such as the steering wheel. Because the road car’s 3.8-liter, V8 twin-turbo has so much power, it has been de-tuned for the GT3 to make it more tractable, leaving it with 539 hp. To save weight and to accommodate race-specific gearing, the 12C also features a Ricardo six-speed sequential-shift gearbox instead of the seven-speed of the road car. McLaren’s goal is to build strong relationships with their buyers, so the car will be a very limited production. Demand for the initial run of 12C GT3’s was high, 20 more are planned for 2013 and 2014. Finally, a McLaren is back in GT3 racing!