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The story behind the Bruce Meyers racecar bed

It must have been quite a spectacle to watch as a full-size vehicle trailer pulled up in front of the Schorrs' suburban house and delivered a garish French Racing Blue sports car. But it might not have been all that odd. "My world was the car world, and my dad was the car guy," Stuart Schorr, now Jaguar Land Rover communications chief, recalls of his youth. His father Marty was the editor in chief of high performance car magazines during the muscle-car era of the '60s and '70s. "I was the only kid who had a Plymouth Superbird parked in the driveway, who got driven to school in a hot-rodded Corvette." Yet this vehicle was extraordinary, even by Schorr standards. Made of thick fiberglass, with four-spoke mags and racing slicks, it looked like a McLaren M6 Can-Am racer – wide, voluptuous, and impossibly low. But in place of niceties like the front intake, cockpit, and engine, it had a broad cutout the size and shape of a coffin. Also, it unbolted in the middle lengthwise. Workers hauled it into the house, one piece at a time, through the window, and bolted it together in Stuart's bedroom, finishing with a full-size twin mattress. "When Stuart came home from school, he found the McLaren bed in his room," Marty Schorr says. "I'm pretty sure he slept in that bed until he went away to college." (This may have been the most unusually effective form of teen birth control. "No female ever saw that bed," Stuart confesses.) One of the great mysteries of the bed was its provenance. "If you looked under the plastic tires, it had these stickers that said B.F. Meyers & Company." This was the imprint of Bruce Meyers, creator of the Meyers Manx: the flippant fiberglass wonder that ushered in – and was then summarily ushered out of – the Volkswagen dune buggy conversion market. Did Bruce Meyers build a kids' bed? And, if so, why? Bruce Meyers grew up near the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, surfing and diving illegally off the piers. "That's the kind of life I led as a boy," he says during an extensive interview. "It was one with a lot of intolerance for rules." A thorough iconoclast, he attended art school. He spent time sailing. He lived on a coral atoll in the South Seas and ran a pearl trading post. And then he returned to Southern California and worked in a shipyard. "Boat building at that time was moving over from wooden to fiberglass construction.

McLaren 650S will hit 124 mph in 8.4 seconds

Sometimes an automaker reveals a car, in full, and that's the whole story. But sometimes things get dragged out a bit. The McLaren 650S falls in the latter category, which strikes us as a bit odd considering that it's essentially a massaged version of the existing MP4-12C. No matter, the news here remains impressive all the same. The British racing team turned supercar constructor first announced the arrival of the 650S two weeks ago. A few days later, the first images and video footage leaked out. McLaren quickly released initial details and official photos the next day, but withheld certain information – key details like pricing, and, you know... how fast it can actually go. We still haven't seen the thing in person – that will come next week when the car is unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show – but now McLaren has released official performance stats for its new supercar (along with a trio of new snapshots). So just how quick is it? Well, for starters, it'll run the 0-62 mph sprint in three seconds flat and trip the quarter-mile lights in 10.5 seconds before topping out at 207 miles per hour. That's rather quick no matter how you slice it, but for context, McLaren points us to the car's 0-124 mph time, and how that compares to other cars it's made. At 8.4 seconds, it takes the 650S half a second less to reach that speed than the 12C upon which it's based – that means it's a full second quicker than the legendary McLaren F1. And that's no mean feat considering that, even twenty years later, McLaren's first road car is still the yardstick against which all other supercars are measured. Scope out the rest of the impressive stats in the press release below. PERFORMANCE FIGURES ANNOUNCED FOR THE McLAREN 650S AHEAD OF GENEVA DEBUT Feb 27, 2014 - New McLaren 650S Coupe can accelerate 0-200km/h (0-124mph) in just 8.4 seconds - Faster than rival 'stripped out' road racers, yet offers far superior comfort, refinement and equipment - Available in Coupe and Spider variants from launch As the first example of the McLaren 650S rolled off the line at the state-of-the-art McLaren Production Centre in Woking, McLaren Automotive has released performance numbers and confirmed pricing ahead of the global debut at the 84th International Geneva Motor Show. The latest addition to the McLaren range accelerates to 100km/h (62mph) from rest in just 3.0 seconds, and can reach 200km/h (124mph) in just 8.4 seconds.

McLaren prices new 650S from $265,500

Just whisper the name "McLaren" and you know you're talking about something expensive. Just how expensive depends on which model you're talking about. McLaren sold all 375 examples of the P1 at $1.15 million. The 12C coupe starts just under $240k and the 12C Spider at $265k. The upcoming P13 should come in around $160k, and the P15 around $500k. But how much will the new 650S set you back? With the 650S set to make its US debut at the New York Auto Show next week, McLaren Automotive has released official pricing and performance figures for our market. The 650S coupe will set you back $265,500, while the 650S Spider starts at $280,225. That makes the new model about $15k more expensive than the less powerful 12C on which it's based. Or to put it another way, it falls right in the middle of the Ferrari 458 range: the Italia starts at $233k, the Spider at $257k and the Speciale (the version with which you could really compare the 650S most directly) approaches $300k. Along with the pricing info, McLaren (having quoted the 0-62 time at three seconds flat) has also revealed the official 0-60 time at 2.9 seconds. Couple that with a quarter-mile time of 10.5 seconds and a 207-mph top speed (for the coupe) and you're looking at an eminently capable supercar. Scope out all the details (including Canadian pricing for those bent on driving their McLaren in the snow) in the press release below. McLAREN AUTOMOTIVE ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN PRICING AHEAD OF NEW YORK AUTO SHOW DEBUT - New McLaren 650S Coupe and Spider now available in North America - US pricing for 650S Coupe starts at USD $265,500 and USD $280,225 for the 650S Spider - Canadian pricing for 650S Coupe and Spider is CAD $287,000 and CAD $305,500 respectively - McLaren 650S to make US debut during the 2014 New York Auto Show Following the global debut at the Geneva Auto Show, the McLaren 650S Coupe and 650S Spider are now on sale in the US and Canada across all 15 retail locations (13 in the US, two in Canada). Of these 15, McLaren Atlanta, McLaren Scottsdale, McLaren Washington DC and McLaren Vancouver were opened in the past six months and reflect the tremendous growth and success of McLaren in North America. As the first example of the McLaren 650S rolled off the line at the state-of-the-art McLaren Production Centre in Woking, McLaren Automotive has released performance numbers and confirmed pricing as part of the global debut at the 84th International Geneva Motor Show.