In an industry that moves as fast as the automotive world, it seems like the McLaren MP4-12C was launched ages ago. Obviously, it’s only been a little over a year since the road successor to the McLaren F1->ke1159 was introduced, so unless our calendars run on Martian time, the production stage of the MP4-12C certainly was a long time coming.

Fortunately, the people over there at Woking, England finally decided to start building the very first production MP4-12C and while the car dubbed ‘Chassis 01’ is still a long ways away from being completed, it’s definitely cause for relief to see that the work is already underway.

We certainly hope that once production starts, it’s going to be a seamless process for the people of McLaren->ke284, especially if they’re trying to build 1,000 cars for this year, which is what they’ve been projecting all along.

We’re very hopeful that the MP4-12C and its 3.8-liter, 600-horsepower V8 engine will be unleashed out on the roads soon. We’ve all waited a long time and though a lot of us probably won’t even get a sniff of this British beast, those people in line to buy this car probably has had an even more excruciating wait on their hands.

In the meantime, we can all enjoy these new build photos released by McLaren, as well as a special video documenting the year of testing the MP4-12C was subjected to.

.