Wednesday 1st July 2015

McLaren promises new 'Ultimate' models

CEO Mike Flewitt confirms to PH that we will see both road and track models in the next few years

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How do you better the McLaren P1 GTR? It's a real issue for Mike Flewitt, the company's CEO, who admits that several different proposals are under consideration for the next incarnation of its 'Ultimate' series.

Where do you go from here?

We interviewed Flewitt earlier this year about his plans for the company's future, but another meeting at the financial results press conference last week gave us a chance to press him a bit further. And he admitted that buyers are likely to expect any future Ultimate model to go even quicker than the P1 or P1 GTR.

"We would have to be very brave not to get faster, because that's the way the market tends to move," he said. "We would love to do a car that's just cut down, maybe 1,200kg and with no regard for top speed - great aero, light weight, and a total focus on driveability. But would we get panned in the press if we did that, if we produced a car that couldn't match the performance of the last car? It's a real risk."

Although he admitted in our last interview that we will see a proper replacement for the P1 in the fullness of time, it will come after 2020. In the meantime, the plan seems to be the creation of some more niche 'Ultimate' variants.

"We do have one car we're working on conceptually at this stage," he said, "but it's just on paper and as a virtual model. We've got the concept of what we want to and we're working on the rest."

Expect road car specials too

Flewitt also insisted that some of the limited run variants will be road cars, not just GTR-style track specials. "Those things are great fun for us to do," he said, "because you can get away from the requirement to worry about certification... but the demand for a road car is always far bigger - 100 to 500 units, depending on the car. For a track-only variant I'd say it's 25 to 50."

He confirmed that any car will be built around the existing component set, albeit retuned and developed. But has also added that low production volumes also give the potential of completely different design.

"We could certainly do a completely unique carbon tub if it's very low volume," he said, "you wouldn't need to invest in tooling, you could do a hand-made tub. But we'd probably never go more than about 20 to 30 percent completely unique content."

With production starting on the P1 GTR soon it will be fascinating to see what McLaren builds to better it.

[Oddball RS]

I didn't know the current crop were of the HLE variety?