McLaren has confirmed it wants to build its new supercar factory alongside the existing F1 facility in Woking.
McLaren's Technology Centre...
Plans were submitted to Woking Borough planning department yesterday for a new McLaren Production Centre on empty land adjacent to the McLaren Technology Centre.
The new facility belonging to McLaren Automotive will have the capacity to build up to 20 cars per day, employing up to 800 staff directly, and an additional 1,500 in the local economy.
If local planners give the scheme the nod, McLaren Automotive's first product will hit the road in early 2011. Codenamed P11, the car is a two-seat Mercedes V8 powered sportscar designed to pinch customers from Ferrari's 430 and the Lamborghini Gallardo. A range of other McLaren models are already in the planning stages.
The proposed production centre has been designed by Norman Foster and take its cues from the existing Technical Centre building, which is sunk into the ground and heavily landscaped to minimise the environmental impact. The plans will be voted on by Woking Borough Council in July.
'It would be easy enough to consider building McLaren sports cars in existing productive and experienced foreigh factories; a number of which are knocking on our door' says McLaren's boss Ron Dennis. 'However McLaren is a great British company founded over 40 years ago that should, in my view, continue to design and build our own products.'
...also a Norman Foster design
'Ever since we revealed the McLaren F1 sports car in 1992, it has been a long-held dream of mine to launch a McLaren sports car company. Designing, developing and selling globally the best sports cars in the world is just half of that equation; building them to previously un-matched levels of quality, with ground-breaking technologies in a production facility in the UK is key to satisfying that dream.'
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