McLaren makes its marque

Wealthy Formula One fans have always had the option of experiencing cutting edge race technology by purchasing a Porsche or a Ferrari. It’s not quite the same as handling a Formula One car but, for all except a talented elite, that’s as close as a civilian driver is likely to get.

Over a decade after it first produced a roadgoing car, Britain’s McLaren team is now dedicating a great deal of time, effort and skill to developing sports cars in its technology centre near Woking in Surrey – a development that can only be good news for serious motorsport fanatics.

The original McLaren sports car’s success was not followed up with new models. Instead, the company put its engineering expertise to use in the stunning Mercedes SLR, but now the resolution to bring a new McLaren branded supercar to the roads has motoring enthusiasts all a flutter.

Dick Glover, McLaren Automotive’s technical director, admits that a lot of the advances made lately are due to ‘technology transfer’ in other words applying Formula One know-how to production cars.

The new MP4-12C has been a familiar sight on the minor roads around Woking for the past few months as it was put through its paces by a dedicated team. It might be a high performance sports car, but the MP4-12C should also be able to provide an answer to environmentalists as this 600hp vehicle has the lowest carbon emissions of any comparable vehicle on the market.

McLaren is building a brand new factory in Woking to ensure the construction of 4,000 MP4-12Cs per year once it is launched in 2011. Current plans are to retail these sleek supermodels of the automobile world at £125,000 to £175,000.

While McLaren’s Formula One year has been disappointing, this new venture should ensure its successful transition from racing team to upmarket marque.

www.mclarenautomotive.com

New post on at Wednesday, 16 September, 2009, 7:26 am and is archived in Classic cars, Lifestyle, Sport. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.