The McLaren in Park Lane is an Early One

[mini magic]

so i was looking through my pics and i noticed something (dunno if u guys know this or not), but it has rectangular mirrors, which were only one earlier models, check it out:

[mini magic]

::

[mini magic]

whaddya think??

[tvrfreak]

Nah, I think they are the standard VW Corrado mirrors. Could be the way the light is reflecting, although they don't look any different to me.

[mini magic]

nevermind, i wasn't comparing these anyway, i was just saying they all look rectangular and i was gonn apost a pic that had different shaped mirrors, but now i see they all the same

[Peloton25]

There are some early cars with slightly different mirrors. I'm not at home, but when I get there I will try to post examples of both. I would guess that most of them have been updated so that there is now only one style of side mirror on most every car.

>8^)
ER

[mini magic]

here is the newer one, note they are not as big, they look the same length but are shorter

[tvrfreak]

They look the same to me...standard Corrado mirrors. And the stalks they are mounted on also look the same. Maybe someone could post two pictures side-by-side to show the difference?
Thanks,
Faisal.

[tvrfreak]

Browsing through Driving Ambition, I read that the original high mirrors with turn signals were found to be illegal in some parts of the world--that is why they were dropped from the original design. In England, McLaren agreed to drop them in exchange for acceptance of the 4-point seat harnesses from the Department of Transport type approval officials.

[mini magic]

Originally posted by tvrfreak
Browsing through Driving Ambition, I read that the original high mirrors with turn signals were found to be illegal in some parts of the world--that is why they were dropped from the original design. In England, McLaren agreed to drop them in exchange for acceptance of the 4-point seat harnesses from the Department of Transport type approval officials.

there is a debate going on in another thread right now (can't remember which one tho) about this issue

[tvrfreak]

Yeah, I remember that thread...we were talking about the aerodynamic pros and cons of the mirrors. Peloton had originally asked where the mirrors were from.

[Peloton25]

Originally posted by Peloton25
There are some early cars with slightly different mirrors.

That's what the original F1 mirrors looked like. I know that all the XP's except for XP2 (which had no mirrors) had this style of mirror. Also, some of the early production cars also had these mirrors originally fitted. I'm not sure at what point in production that the factory chose to switch over to the Corrado mirror, but I haven't seen many photos of F1's with this original mirror style. I would guess that the switch happened prior to 1995, as even the original photos of the F1 GTR prototype #01R show the Corrado mirrors fitted to that car.

The images above were chopped out of photos of #002 from the Autocar book, btw. I don't have a scanner yet, so I took them with my digital camera and apologize for the so-so quality.

Now in looking at photos of the London dealer car, I have to say that those are the Corrado mirrors fitted to that car in every one that I can tell. We'll just have to wait till you get there to see whether it's really an "early" model.

mini-magic - I don't agree that the photo you posted along with this comment "here is the newer one, note they are not as big, they look the same length but are shorter" is actually a shot of the new mirrors. It's hard to be 100% certain, but I think I'm right.

BTW: If anyone needs some close-ups on the Corrado mirrors for comparison, let me know and I'll toss them up this weekend sometime.

>8^)
ER

[mini magic]

i need to get that autocar book..

[Peloton25]

Originally posted by mini magic
i need to get that autocar book..

It's not the greatest - but it has a few bits and pieces of the puzzle that you won't find elsewhere. It's a softbound book - around 100 pages I believe - more like a magazine, so don't expect too much from it.

Also, remeber that the info in that book only applies to the F1 road cars as it was published in early 1994. There are a lot of pieces to the story that just aren't covered. Also, the photos inside aren't terribly spectacular. Most of them are studio shots of #002 which had just been completed by the factory at the time of printing. Most of the good photos span two pages so I have been contemplating picking up another copy so I can cut it up and scan them.

The copy I purchased via flEaBAY ended up costing me over $30 including freight and insurance, so I'm not eager to spend that much to get another copy. Especially since I just plan to tear it apart for scans, and even more so considering the book was originally a free insert with the Autocar subscription that year.

>8^)
ER

[tvrfreak]

According to Driving Ambition, Peter Stevens liked these mirrors and originally used them on the Esprit Mk2 and Jaguar XJR-15. They are originally from the Citroen CX.

Later on, other people also put them on the XJ220 and a couple of other cars.