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"In a letter to owners late last week, McLaren announced that it has officially ceased production its first high-volume model, the 12C supercar. According to a spokesperson from Woking, the decision comes after a positive reaction to the new 650S, an evolved version of the 12C that debuted a month ago in Geneva. &amp;quot; \u2026 Global demand is now 100 percent in favor of 650S,&amp;quot; a company representative told us. &amp;quot;MPC is already sitting on a six-month order bank.&amp;quot; WATCH THIS: Watch the Hennessey HPE700 McLaren 12C destroy its factory counterpart McLaren insists that it&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;not ready to forget the 12C just yet&amp;quot; and will offer a &amp;quot;650S-inspired technology upgrade&amp;quot; to all current owners of the discontinued 616-hp model beginning in June of this year. This package will include updates to the Active Aero&amp;#039;s airbrake function and Android infotainment system as well as a new rear parking camera.  In its three-year production run, roughly 3500 examples of the 12C were built and sold; its legacy is much larger than that number indicates. READ THIS: McLaren 12C and Ferrari F12 in a tunnel? Better than coffee Though sometimes criticized for lacking the theater and &amp;#039;soul&amp;#039; of its Ferrari 458 Italia rival, the 12C launched McLaren Automotive\u2014a full-on road car arm from one of racing&amp;#039;s most illustrious marques. In terms of polish and usability, the 12C is a role model for supercars taken to finishing school. And then there&amp;#039;s that engine.  The 3.8-liter twin-turbo is amongst the most flexible performance powerplants ever developed: Besides the 12C and 650S, it&amp;#039;s the base for Mac&amp;#039;s 963-hp P1 hypercar, a future Porsche 911 Turbo-fighter and, quite possibly, a fourth model in Woking&amp;#039;s lineup. WATCH THIS: Chris Harris pits the new 911 Turbo S against the McLaren 12C Spider Most of all, though, the 12C will be remembered for leaps in carbon-fiber tech and assembly methods\u2014the $970,000 McLaren F1&amp;#039;s pre-impregnated composite shell required 3000 hours to prepare; the $229,000 MP4-12C needed just 240 minutes. Thanks to said carbon tub, the Spider variant weighed just 88 lbs more than its coupe counterpart. It even retained both spring rate and shock valving from the hardtop. In the realm of open-top performance, that&amp;#039;s a revelation.  Oh, it&amp;#039;s worth mentioning the 12C&amp;#039;s successful GT3 competition variant as well as its $66 million McLaren Production Center in southeast England, which created 300 new jobs and employed some 450 skilled workers in the process\u2014crucial stuff in a country that has a workforce under 40 million, especially amid a global recession in 2010. All things considered, not bad for a first try. PHOTOS: McLaren 12C MSO concept "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a7569/mclaren-12c-dead/>