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Car Profile Art

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Car Profile Art

Hand painted historically significant F1 cars created by former McLaren design engineer (1980-2005), Matthew Jeffreys. Many McLarens, but also other marques.

Email: [email protected] Car Profile Art depict hand painted historically significant F1 cars. Each print depicts an image taken from one of my original paintings created in acrylic paints on stretched 300gsm cotton watercolour paper. Initial illustrations are of McLaren F1 cars but the intention is that other marques will be added over time. Full size, the cars are painted in 1/12th scale and as close as possible to faithful reproductions of the specifications of the real cars at specific races. Smaller scale prints are available for those wanting to create 'Desk Art' with back to back prints in acrylic or Perspex photo frames. All enquiries to [email protected]

13/09/2026

The McLaren MP4/8B... Update 3..

An update on my latest project, the MP4/8B Lamborghini V12 engined test car driven by Ayrton and Mika in September 1993.

Wheels and tyres in progress.. It's always challenging painting concentric circles but given the whiteness of the car's surfaces it seems even more important to add authentic detail to these.

Painting a white car on white paper is always a challenge 🤔.. Shades of grey that need to trick the eye into thinking it shiny white.. Thank goodness for Ayrton's yellow helmet and the tyres where addition cues can be added to complete the illusion.

Email me at

[email protected]

to reserve a limited edition print.

It was great to see the McLaren MP4/8B (Chrysler) Lamborghini V12 car at Goodwood last weekend. The car was never raced but intended as a 'device' to keep Ayrton at McLaren for '94 and also have as an alternative engine option in case the future deal with Peugeot didn't materialise.

Under chief designer Neil Oatley, I was the project leader for this car during the summer of '93. The monocoque was a modified MP4/8A, with revised engine mounts. The longer (than the Ford V8) V12 engine required 'stretching' the car by about 4.875" (123mm). This was done by creating a longer floor, topbody and airbox.

We didn't really have any great expectations for the car as it was only a test 'mule'. However, when Ayrton drove it at an Estoril test, he thought it was amazing and phoned Ron Dennis to say he wanted to race it at the last few races!. That was never going to be possible of course due to contract reasons and, not least, the fuel tank wasn't big enough for the car to reach the end of a race.. This didn't deter Ayrton however, who said he would happily run out of fuel if he could compete at the front of the grid again.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/sennas-stretched-mclaren-lamborghini-f1s-greatest-what-if/

09/09/2026

The McLaren MP4/8B... Update..

An update on my latest project, the MP4/8B Lamborghini V12 engined test car driven by Ayrton and Mika in September 1993.

Painting a white car on white paper is always a challenge 🤔.. Shades of grey that need to trick the eye into thinking it shiny white.. Thank goodness for Ayrton's yellow helmet and the tyres where addition cues can be added to complete the illusion.

Email me at

[email protected]

to reserve a limited edition print.

It was great to see the McLaren MP4/8B (Chrysler) Lamborghini V12 car at Goodwood last weekend. The car was never raced but intended as a 'device' to keep Ayrton at McLaren for '94 and also have as an alternative engine option in case the future deal with Peugeot didn't materialise.

Under chief designer Neil Oatley, I was the project leader for this car during the summer of '93. The monocoque was a modified MP4/8A, with revised engine mounts. The longer (than the Ford V8) V12 engine required 'stretching' the car by about 4.875" (123mm). This was done by creating a longer floor, topbody and airbox.

We didn't really have any great expectations for the car as it was only a test 'mule'. However, when Ayrton drove it at an Estoril test, he thought it was amazing and phoned Ron Dennis to say he wanted to race it at the last few races!. That was never going to be possible of course due to contract reasons and, not least, the fuel tank wasn't big enough for the car to reach the end of a race.. This didn't deter Ayrton however, who said he would happily run out of fuel if he could compete at the front of the grid again.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/sennas-stretched-mclaren-lamborghini-f1s-greatest-what-if/

02/09/2026

John Watson's MP4/1 throttle pedal

Following on from my post yesterday showing the pedal settings reference sheet for Alain and Stefan, I thought I'd share a photo of an actual (similar) throttle pedal made for John Watson that he used in 1981 for the MP4/1.

Fabricated in titanium alloy IMI 125, you can see the simplicity of the design with very few component parts. The welded structure had a cylindrical pivot bush at the top with a pressed-in DU bush to minimise friction and give it a smooth feel when operated. The male threaded boss in the centre is where the throttle cable attached. Eagle-eyed welding experts may have some concerns with the multi-colours around the welds indicating a certain amount of oxygen embrittlement. Whilst this would certainly be of concern for a highly stressed part, the throttle pedal was so lightly loaded it was not a concern for this application.

Like the throttle pedals for Alain and Stefan, this pedal pivoted from the inside top of the monocoque footwell.

31/08/2026

MP4/3 1987 pedals and steering wheel setup sheet for Alain and Stefan.

Another sheet that may be of interest, the pedal settings and steering wheel positions for Alain and Stefan. These reference sheets were produced for the mechanics once the exact positions were determined after the drivers sat in the new car mock-up prior to the first test. They could still change of course once the driver had driven the car 'in anger'. However, once settled the mechanics would use this information to accurately set the pedal positions referencing the inside face of the monocoque's front bulkhead. The steering wheel height and position was also recorded. These sheets were especially important for the T-car mechanics who may have to swap their car for the other driver at a moment's notice.

Note how on the MP4/3 the throttle pedal pivoted at the top, which I always thought wasn't ideal as the arc of the pedal's motion moved in the opposite sense to the driver's foot when pressed. This was a carry-over from Barnard's previous cars and we changed it to a floor mounted throttle pedal on the MP4/4 in 1988.

30/08/2026

Fun Fact: Steve Nichols' MP4/2 Fixed Rear Anti-Roll Bar stiffness calculations 1984

Going through some old note pads in the garage the other day I came across a sheet of calculations written by Steve Nichols relating to the fixed RARB for the MP4/2 as used by Niki Lauda and Alain Prost.

If you can follow it you have real talent! When I showed it to Steve the other day he said "Blimey, how did I do that!"

The calculations relate to the load/deflections (delta) for two bars with an overlapping range: one for hard range and one for a softer range. These traditional non-driver-adjustable) interchangeable bars consisted of a torque tube with two welded cantilever arms. What Steve did, quite brilliantly in my mind, to optimise weight, was to calculate for the maximum stress in the torque tube to occur at exactly the same time as the maximum stress in the two cantilever arms. Furthermore, Steve calculated the profile of the arms such that they had an even stress distribution. This meant they had a slightly elliptical profile rather than a straight line.

When I started full-time at McLaren (I was no.7 in John Barnard's Design Office), my mind was well and truly blown by what Steve was doing. This to me was one of the reasons McLaren were so special in the 80s. The attention to detail set by Ron, JB and the likes of Steve made thd team second to none.

24/08/2026

MP4/6 front suspension design calculations..

Another page of old notes found buried in my garage from 1990/1991 from when I was designing the MP4/6 front suspension.

This sheet shows some initial rough hand calculations for when I was sizing the push-rod, itself a compression member that also had to withstand buckling. You'll see that this sheet only initially considers the vertical load (bump load) at the wheel. Cornering and braking loads would be considered independently, then everything added together.

The technique was to give the bump load a value of 1.0 unit then resolve the push-rod load, and other links' loads, in terms of this unit load.

Note that with spherical joints in the suspension members, all the vertical load at the wheel has to be resisted/carried by the push-rod. Furthermore, with the push-rod at an angle, it's the vertical component of the compression load in the push-rod that has to match the input vertical load at the wheel. The result of this single input also causes compression forces in the upper wishbone and tensile forces in the lower wishbone. When cornering and braking loads are analysed independently, the maximum and minimum loads in each suspension member can be determined and, with the material chosen (in this case SAE 4130 alloy steel) the cross section of each member calculated to ensure it will never break or buckle.

The MP4/6 saw us return to a push-rod layout for the front suspension, the first time since the MP4/3 in 1987. This was mainly due to the aero department wanting to narrow the chassis close to the driver's ankles meaning the spring/dampers hadcto go on the top of the monocoque.

For signed limited edition MP4/6 prints, email me at [email protected]

🇧🇷

22/08/2026

Alain Prost's brake pedal problem in the MP4/4...

I came cross some of my MP4/4 design notes recently that I wrote in June 1988 for chief designer Steve Nichols, as a couple of revised brake pedal pad options for Alain to try. He had never been quite happy during heavy braking, feeling the pad needed to be slightly lower than originally designed.

With the brake stem pivot mounted on the floor of the monocoque, the pads were designed to be detachable from the stem which made it easier for the mechanics to change pads between drivers, especially for the T-car mechanics, and also allowed us to easily alter the design if need be.

In this case, Alain wasn't happy that the pedal, when pressed hard, caused his heel to lift off the floor slightly as the pedal reached 'top dead centre'. He also thought the pad was too high on his foot causing a slight loss of 'feel'.

My notes to Steve offered two options of revised pad positions (also truncated by 5/8" at the top) relative to the stem that he could try. Note, in this context 'forward and rearward' are relative to the driver not the car..

From memory, after testing both options, Alain preferred option 2.

-4

20/08/2026

A new addition to the MP4/4 Engineering Collection is in the pipeline: adding our test driver Emanuele Pirro.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the driver installations of Alain, Ayrton and Emanuele. You'll notice the one thing in common between all of them, namely the feet position dictated by new regulation in 1988.

Many of you will know that Emanuele was an essential part of the McLaren-Honda team in late '87, '88 and '89, lapping the Suzuka circuit in Japan more times that he probably wants to remember in the 3B, 4/4, 4/4B and 5!.

It's interesting to see how we managed to fit him in the car. Being taller than both Ayrton and Alain he was certainly a challenge and it required us to cut two large holes out of his seat so his shoulders could find a small amount of comfort touching the hard and inflexible seat-back bulkhead!

Email [email protected]

18/08/2026

A new addition to the MP4/4 Engineering Collection is in the pipeline: adding our test driver Emanuele Pirro.

Many of you will know that Emanuele was an essential part of the McLaren-Honda team in late '87, '88 and '89, lapping the Suzuka circuit in Japan more times that he probably wants to remember in the 3B, 4/4, 4/4B and 5!.

His work was invaluable to us; testing the various engine configurations, modifications and developments which rapidly converted into incredibly reliable qualifying and race-ready engines for Alain and Ayrton to perform their magic with.

Adding Emanuele to the Engineering Collection of limited edition prints is bound to be popular, so if you'd like one, email me now to reserve one!

It's interesting to see how we managed to fit him in the car. Being taller than both Ayrton and Alain he was certainly a challenge and it required us to cut two large holes out of his seat so his shoulders could find a small amount of comfort touching the hard and inflexible seat-back bulkhead! Sorry about that Emanuele Pirro!

Email [email protected]

10/08/2026

Ayrton's switch layout on the 1992 MP4/7

Many thanks to my friend and former colleague, Chris (I won't say his full name in case I land him in trouble for having it!) for sharing this photo of one of my drawings I did back in 1992 of the cockpit switch layout in the MP4/7. It was only really produced as an aide-memoire for the mechanics to share with the driver's when they were getting used to a new car..
It all seems so simple when compared with the current crop of cars, especially as many of the controls are now on the steering wheel.

Note that switches on the right hand side of the driver's seat would have been operated using his left hand and vice versa.. With the semi-automatic gearbox, the clutch, upshifts and downshifts were controlled with paddles on the back of the steering wheel.

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