McLaren boss: No F1 successor
Reports of a reborn McLaren F1 untrue, says company CEO at financial results meetingBritish supercar maker McLaren has reported operational profitability for the third consecutive year in a row at its end of financial year results late last week, with record sales of 1654 vehicles.
But the bigger news at the meeting relate to the rebirth of the McLaren F1… Or more correctly, that there will not be one!
US publication
has reported that McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt has poured cold water on the rebirth rumours at the meeting, stating: "We loved the F1, but we're not going to make another one."The company's future success will rely heavily on its more affordable models, not the top-shelf stuff, and McLaren Automotive expects sales to double sales in the next 12 months as the Sports Series models filter into dealerships.
"The launch of the Sports Series opens McLaren up to an entirely new audience and will be pivotal in developing our sales volumes from the 2015 levels of 1,600 to nearly triple that number by 2020," said Flewitt.
McLaren Automotive is still holding to its Track22 strategy that "commits us to investing £1 billion in research and development, delivering no less than 15 all-new cars or derivatives by 2022," said the company CEO.
But those all-new cars or derivatives won't include a new F1, it seems.
"You get asked all the time," said Flewitt of a new-generation F1.
"I regularly get asked for three seats and a V12 and a manual gearbox. I just don't think there's a real business case to do one of those," he said.
McLaren Automotive's Global Corporate Comms manager, Duncan Forrester, told motoring.com.au much the same at the Goodwood Festival of Speed recently.
"If you went to look at three seats, as an example, the immediate point of reference for that is the F1 production car. So that car is iconic. So you'd have to look and think, how could you do that again? Do you want to do that?
"For now, for everything we know, two-seater mid-engine sports cars is what we do," said Forester.
The financial results also confirm the McLaren Ultimate Series expanding to two vehicles, one hybrid, one fully electric. The Ultimate Series currently comprises just one model, the P1, all of which are sold out.
The press statement reads "the company is also in the early prototype stages of the development of a fully-electric powertrain to evaluate its possible use in a future generation of an Ultimate Series car".
Just don't expect it to be wearing the F1 badge.
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