McLaren Automotive (formerly known as McLaren Cars) is a British luxury automotive manufacturer based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England. The main products of the company are sports cars, which are produced in-house in designated production facilities. , McLaren Automotive is wholly owned by CYVN Holdings LLC, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.
History
Origin and founder
McLaren Automotive replaced McLaren Cars in 2010. McLaren Cars was founded in 1985[5] and released the McLaren F1 in 1992. Between 1994 and 2010, McLaren Cars was registered as a 'dormant company', before the founding of McLaren Automotive in 2010. The new company was originally separate from the existing McLaren companies to enable investment in the new venture, but was brought together in July 2017 after Ron Dennis sold his shares in McLaren Automotive and McLaren Group.
McLaren's Formula One founder Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1937,[6] and learned about cars and engineering at his parents' service station and workshop there. By 15, he had entered a local hillclimb in an Austin 7 Ulster, winning his first race in the car.[7] In 1958, McLaren arrived in the United Kingdom with the 'Driver to Europe' scheme, intended to help Australian and New Zealand racers to compete in Europe. His mentor, Jack Brabham, introduced him to Cooper Car Company, a small team based in Surbiton, Surrey. Auspiciously starting his Formula One career in 1958, McLaren joined the Formula One team a year later. That same year, he won the US Grand Prix at age 22, making him the youngest Grand Prix winner to that date.[8] He stayed with Cooper for a further seven years, winning three more Grands Prix and other races, driving for Jaguar and Aston Martin, and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 with Ford.
McLaren founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in 1963. A year later, the company built the first true McLaren race car, the M1 (24 customer cars were produced by Elva). Its successor, the M1B, allowed McLaren into the Can-Am championship, where it dominated with 43 victories, almost three times more than rival Porsche.[9] In 1965, the first McLaren Formula One car, the M2B, debuted at the Monaco Grand Prix.
After his victories and time in Formula One, McLaren was designing and testing a prototype M6GT-registered OBH 500H, a lightweight sports car with an estimated top speed of 165 mph and zero to 100 mph time of eight seconds.[10] McLaren died while testing a race car at Goodwood in 1970 before the prototype could be completed.
Merging, spinoff and growth
In 1980, the company merged with Ron Dennis’ Project 4 Racing team. The merger brought back designer John Barnard, who was interested in using carbon fibre composite. Carbon fibre was already used in aerospace applications but had never been applied to a complete racing car monocoque. McLaren pioneered the use of carbon fibre in motor racing with its new car, the MP4/1, bringing new levels of rigidity and driver safety to Formula 1. In August 1988, Dennis, Team Principal and Gordon Murray started to develop a new car and in 1992, the F1 was launched with a total production run of just 106 units.
Following a brief collaboration with Mercedes-Benz for the SLR McLaren, McLaren Automotive was re-launched as a standalone manufacturer in 2010, spinning off McLaren Racing. The company launched the 12C in 2011 and its Spider variant in 2012. The limited-run P1 went into production in 2013 and ended in 2015. After introducing a business plan to release a car or model every year, the company unveiled the 650S in Coupé and Spider models in 2014, and unveiled the new Sports Series range comprising the McLaren 570S and 540C in 2015. The company debuted a spin-off model from the P1 for children, the P1TM, in September 2016
List of CEOs
Current: Nick Collins (since May 2025)[19]
Previous CEOs
- Mike Flewitt (2013–2021)
- Michael Leiters (2022–2025)[20]
Headquarters and facilities
McLaren Automotive is based at the McLaren Technology Centre, alongside the rest of the McLaren Group, and at the adjacent McLaren Production Centre. The two facilities are connected by a subterranean walkway, with the MPC built partially underground to minimise its presence.
In 2017 McLaren announced the construction of the £50m McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC) at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.[21] The facility will build carbon fibre chassis for future McLaren road cars. The facility aims to give McLaren greater control over the manufacture of composite tubs, providing an opportunity to increase the pace of the design and development of the tubs. Full production will begin at the MCTC by 2020. The MCTC was officially opened by The Duke of Cambridge, Duchess of Cambridge, and the Crown Prince of Bahrain in November 2018.[22][23]
Products and strategy
McLaren's first purpose-built road car was the F1, based on a concept developed by Gordon Murray that he convinced Ron Dennis to back. McLaren Cars went into hibernation following the completion of the F1's production run, and McLaren did not return to the production car market until launching McLaren Automotive in 2010, just prior to the release of the MP4-12C (eventually simplified to just 12C) in 2011.
McLaren launched its current three-tier product structure in 2015, dividing their range of cars into the Sports, Super, and Ultimate Series. Cars in the Sports and Super Series are given names based on the car's power output in PS, followed by a model designation (C for club, S for sport, GT for grand tourer and LT for longtail). The Sports Series is the entry-level tier, the Super Series is considered to be McLaren's core model range, the Ultimate Series is the high-end tier intended to be the successor to the original F1. The F1 and 12C were retroactively included in the Ultimate and Super Series, respectively. The structure was expanded to include the GT Series with the release of the McLaren GT in 2019.[24]
Sports Series
GT Series
Division
McLaren Customer Racing
McLaren Customer Racing is the sports car racing arm of McLaren Automotive, established in 2011 as McLaren GT to develop, build and support all McLaren track and GT race activities. The division is currently responsible for the design, development and production of the 720S GT3 and 570S GT4, along with the new Artura GT4 and Artura Trophy.
The first car developed by McLaren GT was the 12C GT3,[27] which was launched in 2011, and following a development year, 25 examples were delivered to customers for racing throughout Europe in 2012. The debut season saw 13 McLaren GT customer teams visit 14 countries and between them, the teams claimed a total of 19 race victories in the FIA GT1 World Championship, Blancpain Endurance Series, 24 Hours of Barcelona, British GT, City Challenge Baku, FFSA French GT and GT Cup.[28]
See also
- Aston Martin
- McLaren
External links
- McLaren Automotive official website
- McLaren Performance Technologies official website
- How It Works magazine article
References
- https://cars.mclaren.press/releases/1297^
- McLaren 720S – Super Series cars.mclaren.com^
- McLaren Automotive Group FY2022 Results mclaren.com, McLaren Group, 18 May 2023, retrieved 2 August 2023^