I've said it before on these pages but you get a pretty good measure of a car manufacturer by the kind of cars filling its staff car park.
As discussed previously
, sections of JLR's car park are full of PH-worthy metal. Ferrari's? A desultory collection of fairly boring looking diesel Fiat and Chrysler/Lancia diesel MPVs and hatchbacks.
AC Zagato 378GT among the unusual sights
Something not lost on McLaren's PR man, who invited me along to the McLaren Employee Motor Show at the weekend. The event has grown from an apparently fairly informal meet-up for folk working at McLaren to show off the cars they tinker with in their spare time to proper event, open to employees and 'Team McLaren' fans and attracting around 200 cars. Many remain true to the ethos of employee-owned cars but the entry list has expanded to include clubs and collections, boosting the variety of cars to include rally and touring cars, single-marque associations and, naturally, a few stars from McLaren's own collection.
The above included a few cars belonging to former employees. Some you may have heard of, with surnames like Lauda, Prost, Watson, Senna and more besides... These were inside the McLaren Technology Centre's immaculate boulevard, no doubt sterilised before Ron returned to work this morning, while outside road cars like the SLR, 12C and P1 were lined up. The latter looked especially cool, slammed on its Race mode ride height and with the pleasing patina of a working prototype rather than a show stand glamour puss.
See below for a selection of pics underlining that, yes, even McLaren has a human side.