Ai Design Blog
McLaren 720S N-Largo rescue
While most vehicles come to us in stock form—often fresh from the dealer—sometimes we receive a vehicle that has seen…some stuff. A vehicle that has been modded, or in many cases, molested, elsewhere. And the owner wants it fixed. Or rebuilt properly. We call these projects: rescues.
We recently completed a two year long rescue of a good client’s McLaren 720S. This client is a big fan of Novitec’s N-Largo packages and we’ve transformed a couple of his Ferraris into full blown N-Largo vehicles. Body kits, engine and exhaust mods, interior bits, etc. For the 720S project however, the entire N-Largo transformation, was done by another shop in California.
This client is a goldRush Rally regular and likes to run a different vehicle in the event each year. After competing in GRR that year, the 720S was shipped directly to Ai Design to be repaired.
Seeing it for the first time, I was shocked. The workmanship, or lack thereof, was stunningly abominable. No aspect of the installation of the aero work, the final paint, etc., was done correctly, nicely, or professionally. Some highlights:
- Immediately, anyone could see how the panel gaps were cavernous and of several different widths – all over the car.
- Another big issue that struck us, essentially whacked us in the face, was the exterior finish. It was obvious to even a layman that too much sanding and rounding and poor application of fillers had destroyed the fit and flow of every line on the body. Where there might be a sharp ridge from an OEM surface transitioning into a Novitec panel, that ridge was dumbed down and either over-sanded, or more likely, never in the kit due to poor design/construction. Overly aggressive body work was evident everywhere. Where there should have been a continuous sharp ridge, it transitioned to a dull one, or off-center one, and then separated by a monstrous gap! This was all over the car.
These two areas were the bulk of the problem and the horrible execution can’t be overstated. But yet, there was more:
- The headlight openings were a mess, leaving huge gaps between the body and lens. Holes essentially. We took the time to mold in an absolute form-fitting edge to surround the lamp, so with this detail, the lens shape would fully telegraph out. We also took the time to make the front bumper skin fit the headlamp’s shape but also fit right up against it with a small, regular spacing gap.
- The left side of the car was finished entirely different than the right side. We are fairly certain that one person did one side and another the other. Completely different handling and outcome on both sides. Much of this was corrected while fixing the first two points above.
- We had to remove the Novitec quarter panels and reset them, re-shape them, fabricate inner door trim sections for the flair out and fabricate wheel housing liner extensions. These extensions were not done in the initial build, so huge holes allowed debris inside the body.
- We had to re-gap the body and re-shape the lines which was a very arduous process. We used DURATEC which is a special roll-on primer, enabling us to build up the surface. We then did a ton of block sanding to create the correct lines, gaps, etc.
- In the rear, top of the quarter panels, there are faux intake vents as part of the Novitec kit. The Californians had surface mounted these. Talk about an afterthought! We took the time to gouge out the quarter panel to inset these, properly flush to the body.
- The spoiler and rear bumper were a complete mess of mis-alignment, crookedness and very poor mechanical assembly. This was REALLY f-ed up. To fix this, massive adjustments had to be made to the Novitec composite parts and much trial-and-error time spent over the final fit.
- Basic structure and design of the car was a problem in itself. Lack of some fixed hard points compounded the issue with the poorly designed aftermarket parts. Floating/vague mounting points were jury-rigged with shims and spacers.
- The hood never sat correctly so in CA, they shimmed the hinge with about six or seven standard washers. Total Rube Goldberg sure, but also a shit solution because the actual spacing required needed to be wedge shaped and not square. To fix it, we CNC’d a new solution.
- The Novitec stuff is known for shit quality. Nothing fits, lefts don’t match rights and fastening points are the least possible, bordering on none. You are basically on your own when taking on one of these kits to install. A real shit show. That said, the bumper skin connection, as it was installed, was not really removable in a service sense. It was herculean to get it off and would require two Hercules’ to put it back on as it was prepared. Our solution to make the bumper skin serviceable – which is so important on a modern car, as the skin is a major service access point, was to design and CNC new proprietary fasteners, and re-mold some of the composite work, so that servicing and removing the bumper would be more routine.
- Wheel linings and tire rubbing was an issue on all four corners that we had to address.
And another thing. The radar detector was useless as installed:
- Radar sensors were mounted behind composite which renders them ineffective.
- The rearview mirror was destroyed and auto-dimming feature left in-operable.
- The laser sensors were not installed in any way close to proper specification, rendering them useless.
- We added a new Stinger unit with our custom 3D printed Radar View mirror housing and fiber optic sensors cleanly integrated int the front bumper.
We don’t like to bash the work of other shops or aftermarket companies, but some of what we see is just so bad, it needs to be discussed. This 720S looks great now, and the client appreciates the massive difference between where it was and what it has become.
1-914-779-9000
