The McLaren of Grand Tourers

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McLaren promises to redefine the rules of Grand Touring when it releases its own interpretation of the Grand Tourer in just a few months. The announcement was made by CEO, Mike Flewitt, at the company’s press presentation during the 89th International Geneva Motor Show.

“The fourth McLaren to be introduced under the Track25 business plan will be our interpretation of the Grand Tourer. It will be a car that combines competition levels of performance with continent- crossing capability, wrapped in a beautiful lightweight body. It’s a car that has been designed for distance and one that will also provide the comfort and space expected of a Grand Tourer. But with a level of agility never experienced before in this segment. In addition, it will be the lightest of Grand Tourers and by also having the best power-to-weight ratio, I promise it will be one of the quickest. In addition, it will be the only Grand Tourer to share its DNA with the 250mph McLaren Speedtail.”
Mike Flewitt, CEO, McLaren Automotive

Neither the name of the car nor its final design were revealed. But an image of the McLaren of Grand Tourers shown in a distinctive camouflage has been issued. Mike did confirm that it will be a sleek, beautiful and boldly elegant car, one keeping to the McLaren philosophy of every design detail being present for a reason. The interior will feel spacious, uncluttered and modern with only authentic, high quality materials employed. He also promised that the McLaren of Grand Tourers will be the most usable mid-engined car yet.

Mike went on to say that the McLaren of Grand Tourers will not form part of any of the company’s existing model Series and will be a unique, tailored model. Its name and more information are set to be released over the coming months.
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McLaren

https://cars.mclaren.com/newrules

 
KinLM
Am I the only one who wishes that McLaren would stop releasing a new car every week and go back to focusing on having a halfway competent F1 team instead?
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It'd be nice if a new model forced the rest of the models to slow down a bit with there only being so many production lines & assembly teams to put the cars together, therefore saving at least, their resale values.

But yes, agree completely.
 
KinLM
Am I the only one who wishes that McLaren would stop releasing a new car every week and go back to focusing on having a halfway competent F1 team instead?
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McLaren Automotive (run by Mike Flewitt) and McLaren Racing (run by Zak Brown) are not the same company, although they are both owned by McLaren Group (chaired by Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa), along with McLaren Applied Technologies (run by Anthony Murray), and operate out of the MTC in Woking.

What McLaren Automotive does every week doesn't have any bearing on what McLaren Racing is focussing on.
 
Famine
McLaren Automotive (run by Mike Flewitt) and McLaren Racing (run by Zak Brown) are not the same company, although they are both owned by McLaren Group (chaired by Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa), along with McLaren Applied Technologies (run by Anthony Murray), and operate out of the MTC in Woking.

What McLaren Automotive does every week doesn't have any bearing on what McLaren Racing is focussing on.
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True. But they both deal with car engineers. How many of your top tier engineers are working on these road cars instead of the F1 car? McLaren could allocate that workforce to the F1 team and I fail to see how it would be anything but beneficial.

I’m sure you’re going to disagree and that’s fine. They are, in fact, still relatively separate entities at the end of the day.

But, you can also draw a very strong correlation between the increase of McLaren Automotive as a brand, and the decline of McLaren F1 team, even ignoring the whole Spygate situation.

If it were a company like Mercedes? Okay, they’re big enough to where they likely can hire enough top-level talent to where it doesn’t matter; but McLaren, a small independent company? I’m not so sure.

The argument could also be made that their road car company helps with income for McLaren as a whole, helping the F1 team in the process. But that clearly hasn’t been translating to results for the past few seasons.
 
KinLM
True. But they both deal with car engineers. How many of your top tier engineers are working on these road cars instead of the F1 car? McLaren could allocate that workforce to the F1 team and I fail to see how it would be anything but beneficial.

But, you can also draw a very strong correlation between the increase of McLaren Automotive as a brand, and the decline of McLaren F1 team, even ignoring the whole Spygate situation.

If it were a company like Mercedes? Okay, they’re big enough to where they likely can hire enough top-level talent to where it doesn’t matter; but McLaren, a small independent company? I’m not so sure.

The argument could also be made that their road car company helps with income for McLaren as a whole, helping the F1 team in the process. But that clearly hasn’t been translating to results for the past few seasons.
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I don't see how adding road car engineers to an F1 programme can be beneficial. Their F1 team needs a few people who really understand what it takes to create a competitive contemporary Formula One car. It doesn't need more manpower. It would be an obvious and easy fix if it was the case.
 
KinLM
True. But they both deal with car engineers. How many of your top tier engineers are working on these road cars instead of the F1 car? McLaren could allocate that workforce to the F1 team and I fail to see how it would be anything but beneficial.

I’m sure you’re going to disagree and that’s fine. They are, in fact, still relatively separate entities at the end of the day.

But, you can also draw a very strong correlation between the increase of McLaren Automotive as a brand, and the decline of McLaren F1 team, even ignoring the whole Spygate situation.

If it were a company like Mercedes? Okay, they’re big enough to where they likely can hire enough top-level talent to where it doesn’t matter; but McLaren, a small independent company? I’m not so sure.

The argument could also be made that their road car company helps with income for McLaren as a whole, helping the F1 team in the process. But that clearly hasn’t been translating to results for the past few seasons.
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TheCracker
I don't see how adding road car engineers to an F1 programme can be beneficial. Their F1 team needs a few people who really understand what it takes to create a competitive contemporary Formula One car. It doesn't need more manpower. It would be an obvious and easy fix if it was the case.
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The difference between F1 engineering and consumer automotive engineering isn't so much the science and knowledge, but the culture. If you work if F1, you're expected to work all the time. You might get one day off every three weeks, and 18-20 hour days on race weekends or when deadlines loom are pretty normal. So while training an engineer on what's required for F1 might take a little while, the knowledge is mostly transferrable and at the end of the day most of the design techniques are similar, even if there are different amounts of emphasis put on different stages. At the end of the day,

The other thing to point out is that throwing manpower at an F1 team isn't necessarily going to help at all. Adding road car engineers to an F1 team could be beneficial, but it requires a strategic approach with good management and a lot of forward thinking. My knowledge of F1 from the people I've known who have worked there is that it's a constant race against time. If you can beat that by either working on something for future seasons like Mercedes did a couple years ago then you'll naturally do better, but to do so requires smart management of the team in order to avoid falling too far behind on your current work.
 
McLaren's design language is starting to get a bit conservative outside the Senna. I get that this "combines competition levels of performance with continent- crossing capability", but I didn't think it'd literally start to look like a combination of the 570S & 720S as well.
 
I thought the 570s was pretty new and fresh but obviously McLaren themselves don’t seem to agree with me.

But hey I guess if they want to keep releasing a new model every 2 weeks then it’s their decision to make. The better for racing games I suppose.
 
This does not replace the Sports Series. It's another series of cars that will run parallel to the Sports and Super series
 
Old rules. They say you can't combine continent-crossing ride comfort with the thrills of a superlight performance car.

But soon, the New McLaren GT will be revealed. And the old rules will be history.
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Are they claiming that this car would be the first to break that rule? If so, then this would be a feat of parental neglection towards F1.
 
It's basically 720S LT GT. Yawn. McLaren is really becoming the next Porsche when it comes to filling every possible niche in the sports car market.
 
Looks like a super car.

Definitely not my style. That champagne color reminds me of a color that would be used on early 2000s concept builds.
 
phillkillv2
Looks like a super car.
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It kind of is, but McLaren's made it easier to live with and given it a boot bigger than a VW Golf (and long enough for skis and golf bats, which is a dead giveaway).
phillkillv2
That champagne color reminds me of a color that would be used on early 2000s concept builds.
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Well, we have a solution to that:

mclaren-gt-configurator-famine-001.jpg


mclaren-gt-configurator-famine-002.jpg
 
Not sure how I feel about the rear brake light design, but the rest of the car looks good, If not too subdued. I've been rather fond of their car designs as of late, so we will see how I feel about it in time.
 

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