McLaren's three-seat hypercar to be called Speedtail

McLaren has announced its next hypercar, codenamed the BP23, will be called the Speedtail when production begins in late 2019.

Releasing a sketch drawing of the slippery successor to the iconic McLaren F1, the British sports car maker says the Speedtail name is "vocative of a peak speed higher than any McLaren yet and a sinuous, highly streamlined design".

It's not known how fast exactly the McLaren Speedtail will be, but an early teaser of the BP23 revealed that it will be capable of exceeding 243mph (391km/h) – 3mph more than the top speed of the legendary McLaren F1.

Inside the McLaren Speedtail, which revives the F1's old 1+2 seating arrangement, it will be the "most luxurious McLaren so far", hinting that it has been created to go head-to-head with the Bugatti Chiron.

Under the rear boot lid, the Speedtail will feature an advanced electrified version of McLaren's twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 that will feature powerful electric motors as part of McLaren's next-generation Instant Power Assist System (IPAS).

In the McLaren P1, at least, IPAS acted like an F1-style KERS electric power unit that boosted the turbo V8’s output by an additional 131kW/260Nm in an instant when required.

Full technical details will be released later this year but expect the BP23 outputs to dwarf the P1’s 643kW and 750kW, which could be enough for the three-seater to come close to a two-second 0-100km/h time.

Already teased earlier this year by a bizarre widened 720S that featured the BP23’s central driving position, McLaren’s ‘Hyper-GT’ is likely to feature the brand’s trademark dihedral doors and replace the gawky aero-enforced looks of the upcoming McLaren Senna with more beautiful curves.

McLaren has already confirmed it will makes just 106 BP23s — exactly the same number of F1s it manufactured between 1992 and 1998, with each rumoured to cost around $3.5 million.