PH sits down with McLaren CEO Michael Leiters to talk plug-in SUV and the 'son of P1'
PH sits down with McLaren CEO Michael Leiters to talk plug-in SUV and the 'son of P1'For all the specialness of its cars, McLaren Automotive was created around a simple idea. One that Ron Dennis helpfully explained when I interviewed him in what was then the still-fresh McLaren Technical Centre back in 2009, well before any car had been delivered.
But it was COVID that brought the existential crisis as sales dried up and McLaren shed a quarter of its workforce. The company was forced to raise cash to keep going by mortgaging both its space-aged HQ and even its heritage car collection. The launch of the Artura, the first car to sit on McLaren’s new platform, was repeatedly delayed and there were two well-publicised ‘thermal incidents’ on the media drive.
Which, in the manner of other supercar makers being similarly coy, is a way of effectively not-quite saying SUV; something that will compete against cars like the Ferrari Purosangue, Lamborghini Urus and Aston Martin DBX 707. Leiter’s reticence here is understandable given that Flewitt repeatedly pledged McLaren would not produce an SUV.
This line is delivered casually enough to leave the cogs of my brain spinning as I try to catch up. What Leiters is suggesting is a McLaren sitting on another manufacturer’s core architecture, and likely built in the partner’s factory, but powered by either the PHEV V6 from the Artura or, more likely in this part of the market, the brawnier V8 plug-in that McLaren is developing for the 750S replacement.
Will this mean all-wheel drive through an electrically powered front axle? Ferrari and Lamborghini have switched their higher-output PHEVs to e-AWD, but Leiters won’t confirm McLaren will follow: “That’s a detail I don’t want to share yet.” The very possibility it won’t use such a system raises the secondary question of how much power McLaren thinks is appropriate for a single pair of driven wheels in a road car.
This may sound punchy given there are already mega-fast two-seat EVs like the Rimac Nevera and Pininfarina Battista. But Leiters makes clear his definition is based on weight, not just performance.
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