C43 AMG McLaren Varient?

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McGreggor

Active Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2004
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317
Location
Uckfield
Car
CLS55 AMG
C43 AMG McLaren Varient

The ad below appears to be talking about a 390BHP C43, oh yes :D
One of 90 cars made I belive. Anyone have any info on these varients? I assume they are the same spec as the C43's that were used as F1 saftey cars..


http://www.allapprovedcars.com/CarDetails.aspx?Id=500427835


The ad states it's an electronic conversion, but does a normal C43 come with aluminium pistons, all round bilstein gas suspension and lowered 2.5mm?


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C36 AMG for SALE! Check Classifieds for info....
 
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mamoor_dewan said:
If that advert is right, I WANT ONE! Not bad for £16k!!

Me too! :D I've had a chat with the garage about it, all seems genuine. Can well belive it's a special edition as the previous owner was a "Eddie Houston" Didn't ring any bells with me, but aparently the lead singer out of a band called "Pilot"? Bit before my time methinks!!
 
nah - it's no good for Fuzzer - too old :D :eek: ;) Like's 'em smelling sweet n new don't you hun :D
 
pammy said:
nah - it's no good for Fuzzer - too old :D :eek: ;) Like's 'em smelling sweet n new don't you hun :D

Suppose its just more run in ... might go faster :)
 
I consider myself one of the biggest fans of the C43 AMG (and the owner of one, ofcourse) and i thought i knew everything about it. I never came across a "Mclaren Varient". My feeling is that its a regular C43 which has been chipped or something. Maybe thats what they mean by "electronic conversion". Nearly all the things mentioned in the Ad come with the any standard C43, but the standard C43 has 307bhp, this one mentions 390bhp. My car did come with bilstein absorbers and AMG springs and brakes etc, its part of the package, but mine was not lowered.

My feeling is that the car in the Ad is a C43 which was modified in the after-market. For info there was a C43 on sale on Autotrader a couple of months ago (for £20k) which had only done about 19k miles and was modified by BMW Hartge agents (birds), pumping 425bhp, and was kitted out like you wouldnt believe ( £17k Spirit supercharger, dvd and screens, VHS (yes VHS!!), F1 Switchlogic tiptronic controls, etc). All this for £20k, now that was a bargain.

Also as i understand it from my extensive "research", the pace car was a W202 C55 AMG few years ago, not a C43, and infact a member of the AMG club of Germany was selling a C55 pace car about a year ago.

I maybe wrong ofcourse, and there was a "Mclaren Variant". If any of you lads is thinking of going for it my only advice it to check and make sure the engine is in a good conditions. A car which has been modifed this way may have been driven hard and comes with stressed engine, so just be careful and get a MB specialist to check it well beforehand. The other advice i would give is to check the insurance costs (most insurers will shy away from insuring cars which have been maxed and which dont show up on their "regular" list of car).

Otherwise, good luck, and remember, even the "basic" C43 will make your heart beat like never before everytime you hit the throttle. :)
 
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John Peerce said:
My feeling is that its a regular C43 which has been chipped or something. Maybe thats what they mean by "electronic conversion". Nearly all the things mentioned in the Ad come with the any standard C43, but the standard C43 has 307bhp, this one mentions 390bhp.

...

Also as i understand it from my extensive "research", the pace car was a W202 C55 AMG few years ago, not a C43, and infact a member of the AMG club of Germany was selling a C55 pace car about a year ago.

My housemate mechanic used to fit superchips a while back, I think i remember him saying a the horsepower gain is just too much for it to be only a new chip, remember amg would tweak the ecu setup anyway...

As for the pace car, I always thought they used a C43? It would make sense that MB would use a production model like they do these days, and not a special order like the C55 was. However, I do reckon they would have tweaked it past the production spec, and why not their racing partner McLaren? I guess their strategy may have been different back then though..
 
As a non turbo I reckon chip tuning could only really get a max of about 20bhp more, that takes it to 326bhp, lot or more tinkering to get to 390bhp...
 
After yet more long talks with the Garage...

This car is recorded in the meredes log book as a "C43 McLaren Sport" And i'm now told is only one of 6 cars produced. I'm told David Coultard also bought one of these cars, perhaps it was made for him and a few other people, like this scottish singer (Eddie Houston), thought they'd have one too. I'm also told the car went to McLaren straight after AMG, and was sold to the customer competed. There is a McLaren badge in the centre of the dashboard, just below the windscreen on the carbon strip.

I've had one person at Mercedes say they've heard of the McLaren Sports, but no info. The Mercedes service computers don't distinguish it from a normal C43, but the bloke said he wouldn't expect it to.

I'm also trying to clarify with McLaren, but they are slow to respond.

Anyways, I half way to being satisfied its genuine, I'm going up there on Sunday to look at it, I'll snap some pics at the very least, unless I drive it away of course!
 
McGreggor said:
After yet more long talks with the Garage...

It sounds like this is the real thing here . My initial sceptisim was because i couldnt find any reference to such a car anywhere, but it does seem i was wrong and this beast is even more rare than i thought.
 
Anders said:
Bump!

What happened?

All went to plan, the car is genuine as far as I can tell. The owners service booklet is stamped, dated and signed by the dealership where it was sold as a C43 McLaren Sport, and it has the original factory specification slip at the back. I showed it to a dealership local to me who said it all looks genuine documentation, but of course he's never heard of one! I'm going to write to the dealership that sold it, and just get a letter of confirmation.

Car also came with an origianl AMG brochure & pricelist, which I've not seen before, are these rare? Only thing is the cheapskate who previouly owned the car has nicked the pages relating to the c43! :crazy:

Anyways, bought it for a 15,200 in the end, wasn't able to get any more off for a few electrical niggles that I found unless I waited a day to get hold of the owner... Had a lovely drive down from Glasgow in it, shared thankfully with my brother who had all the luck on the motorway, meeting not one, but TWO 911turbos who wanted a race :devil:
 
So jealous. Very well done.

You also MUST come on our German adventure next March so that we can show BRABUS how McLaren do it :D Spaces going fast, sign up now!
 
Well done mate, any sign on whether the mods performed by McLaren were purely electronic or was there more involved?
 
GrahamC230K said:
So jealous. Very well done.

You also MUST come on our German adventure next March so that we can show BRABUS how McLaren do it :D Spaces going fast, sign up now!

Just signed up! Am looking forwards to finding out if they've kept the limiter on or not! I'm also very keen to compare it to a normal C43, as it doesn't feel that much quicker than my C36 to 60-70mph. 80 to 100 though is a definate improvement! :D


mamoor_dewan said:
Well done mate, any sign on whether the mods performed by McLaren were purely electronic or was there more involved?

Well, I think its established that there has to be more than just a Chiped ecu to get a c43 to 390bhp, but then I'm only going on what the guy selling the car said. Perhaps it was just an electronic conversion, and the BHP is really only around 325... I'm thinking of finding a rolling road locally to get it tested to put my mind at rest!

Also, I get my digicam back in a week, so i'll take some pics to see if anyone can spot anything different to a normal C43. ;)
 
I've not gotten round to any mods just yet, though I have a new grill waiting to go on, and I'm currently researching LED lights. Once I get them done, and my carputer mod, I'll post up in the gallery... I do have the pics the dealer took of the car though, I'll post them up a little later tonight but it doesn't show any differences to a standard c43 as far as I can see...
 

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