����ý

FRANK STEPHENSON:It's a big night. We've been looking forward to this for a long, long time. Personally, it's like going to the hospital to see your baby finally being born and brought out into the daylight.

JOANNA:I've ordered three, obviously.

UNKNOWN MALE:This is the point that we've all been working for for the past four or five years, so very, very, very excited. Difficult to put into words.

NARRATOR:'McLaren is one of the world's leading Formula 1 companies, employing famous drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button. But the company's now building its first mass-produced sports car called the MP4 12C.

NARRATOR:'it's a tough market, but the company's hoping their clever design and innovative engineering will give it the edge over its competitors.

NARRATOR:'It's taken five years of intense development to get here, and the process began as a series of concept sketches.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:'We're the guys that sit on the airplane, we don't watch the movies, we sketch.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:Or we're sitting at a table in a restaurant, we're sketching on the napkin, we're sketching on our hands.

FRANK STEPHENSON:Designers, I think, that's just a normal thing, is just to sketch, sketch, sketch.

NARRATOR:'Car designers like Frank use all sorts of inspiration.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:I personally keep some of my favourite animals in the studio. Sharks, there's a horse.

FRANK STEPHENSON:Love that.

FRANK STEPHENSON:I love shapes. This is one of my favourite shapes. I get a lot of inspiration from looking at sculptures such as that.

FRANK STEPHENSON:I'm never bored. Just walking down the street you can find so many things, not just the shops, you can find things on the sidewalk, the type of tiles, the paintings on the signs.

FRANK STEPHENSON:There's always something to inspire you. I love that guy.

FRANK STEPHENSON:You know, you think we're kids, because we're allowed to have these toys in front of us. Well, that's the nature of any designer. You'll find that they have a toyshop around them. The Fokker Dr.1, this is my favourite plane.

NARRATOR:'And Frank's inspiration doesn't stop with his toys.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:I mean, if you look at the animal kingdom, you'll see a lot of animals that are built for speed. You can really relate to all the energy being coiled over the rear wheels, especially because that's the driving part of our car, the back, as an animal, or a cheetah, whatever, they're driving off the rear legs most of the time.

FRANK STEPHENSON:That's an element that we're starting to find, starting to actually bring into the design. Animals that have gone through hundreds of thousands of evolution, are still around, still look extremely beautiful. Nobody says a cheetah doesn't look beautiful. It's an optimised design of what works.

NARRATOR:'While computer-aided design, or CAD for short, helps conceptualise designs, the next stage is to create something physical.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:Now I'm taking you into the design studio. It's probably the most restricted area in the McLaren technology centre.

FRANK STEPHENSON:Very rare that people come in here, even within McLaren itself. What I'll show you is what we actually do in here.

FRANK STEPHENSON:What you're gonna see is the clay model. And contrary to popular belief, it's actually done by people who build it by hand.

FRANK STEPHENSON:So mostly they're trained sculptors who are very, very efficient at creating a physical object from a sketch, and they're masters of what they do.

NARRATOR:'McLaren are incredibly secretive when it comes to showing off their clay designs, because they are constantly experimenting with the finer shapes and contours for their cars.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:'To actually be here looking at the car like this is unheard of. We don't let anybody in. I mean, for us it's a joy to come in' and see the baby being developed. This is almost as if it's in the womb of the mother.

FRANK STEPHENSON:The advantage of clay, it's been around for the whole history of car design, is because you can actually put it on the model, and then if you put too much on, you can take it off, if you need more, you can put it on. It's almost a labour of love.

FRANK STEPHENSON:You have to actually get very close to the model and feel how the transition from a hard radius goes to a softer radius. We can't do that on a computer screen.

FRANK STEPHENSON:It's almost as if you can design the car blind, you don't have to see it, you have to feel it. And by feeling it, you feel if it's right or not right.

NARRATOR:'There are no rules to where inspiration can come from, whether it's the natural world or what designers see around them in everyday life.'

FRANK STEPHENSON:That's when you know you've got it right. When everybody looks at it and says, "I wish I could have something like that".