Here in Monterey for AWESUM CAR WEEK 2012!!!!!11111!11 (aka Pebble Beach), McLaren popped eyeballs with a raging-PMY-painted 12C Spider. The unveiling happened at a private party for the Gooding Moneybags Car Auction at the Pebble Beach Center For Horses That Cost More Than We'd Make If We Lived To Be 800 Years Old.
The company already showed off its baroque, bespoke X1 Concept, built for a private customer, and will show the Can-Am Concept before the week's out.
McLaren's got a history here, having debuted the MP4-12C for the U.S. at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance back in 2010. Yellow was, indeed a bold move considering the brook-no-guff Pebble crowd. As the reveal happened in a stable stocked to the rafters with OCD-restored über-classics — most painted in subdued, period-perfect tones — the 12C practically ignited off the display stand. Imagine Erin Heatherton bursting into a puritan meeting house and offering a lap dance to Anne Hutchinson. Point made.
We're not sure how many sales McLaren made last night — and we're not saying the crowd didn't represent a certain specific, pinkish demographic — but it's clear a few pacemakers got unexpectedly recalibrated by the abrupt change in atmosphere. Good show, Macca.