Take flight with a McLaren 570GT covered in carbon feathers
If this weren't an April Fools' Day joke, you could bet that at least one person would show interest in this.
If the Chicken Lady from "The Kids in the Hall" fell into money, there's only one car she would want.
McLaren is celebrating April Fools' Day with an optional Feather Wrap for its 570GT supercar. The car is festooned with about 10,000 carbon-veined artificial feathers. The process, done by McLaren's MSO customization division, takes about 300 hours and is done by hand.
...I don't even know, man.
Best of all, what you see here is not some sort of computer trickery. A McLaren spokesman in the US confirmed to me that the car is very real, which means that 300-hour estimate is probably how long it took to build this car. Imagine having that job. "You want me to do what, boss?"
Why the 570GT? It's simple -- as a grand touring car, it's best suited for "flying" (get it?) over long distances. "[I]t was on a beautiful day walking around our Woking campus that one of us looked up at the birds circling our lake, then picked up a feather from the ground and placed it on a car," said Robin Crane, the not-at-all-made-up biomimicry specialist at McLaren. "That turned into a conversation with the craftsmen and women at MSO that led to the creation of the Feather Wrap."
The Feather Wrap only adds about 5 pounds to the car's curb weight, which McLaren claims is no more than a metallic paint job. Better yet, the feathers act as grooves at speed, which actually reduces surface drag. Since this is pretty hilarious, and I lack any sort of ornithological know-how, I'll just go along with it.
"We're not usually ones to crow about our achievements but I think we've scored a birdie with this one," said Crane. What, Woking couldn't make the putt for eagle?
