Harold Cunningham
Most exotic car companies get into racing as a way to promote their road-going vehicles. McLaren went about things in the opposite direction, gathering decades of racing experience before building a single street-legal car. Today, McLaren is just about the only high-end automaker left that doesn’t build a sport-utility vehicle—the company’s 2024 lineup is made exclusively of two-door, two-seat, mid-engine supercars. Here’s everything you need to know about this hyper-focused British brand.
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A British Company Named for a Kiwi
Image Credit: Reg Lancaster McLaren Automotive is named for Bruce McLaren, a New Zealand-born racing driver and engineer who spent most of his career in England. Bruce McLaren became a Formula 1 driver in 1959, and launched McLaren Racing in 1963. A talented and successful driver, McLaren and co-driver Chris Amon drove the Ford GT40 that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, part of Ford’s iconic 1-2-3 photo finish. The McLaren Formula One team is the second-oldest and second most successful team competing in the series (behind Ferrari). Tragically, Bruce McLaren died in a crash at Goodwood in 1970 while testing a race car of his own design.
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McLaren and Formula 1
Image Credit: Getty Images McLaren Racing entered its first Formula One Grand Prix in 1966, and while the team has had a long history in IndyCar and Can-Am, it is first and foremost known as a Formula One constructor. The team has won twelve F1 Championships with seven drivers and has fielded some of the greatest names in the sport. Emerson Fittipaldi, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, and Lewis Hamilton have all won F1 Championships while driving for McLaren.
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The First McLaren Road Car
Image Credit: Pascal Rondeau Gordon Murray, a South-African-born race-car engineer, joined McLaren Racing in 1986 as Technical Director. Under Murray, McLaren won four Formula One Drivers’ Championships and Constructors’ Championships in a row, from 1988 to 1991. Also in 1988, Murray and team principal Ron Dennis began work on the first McLaren road car. Murray had long dreamed of building a sports car with the driver’s seat in the middle, allowing for ideal vision around left- and right-hand corners as well as perfect weight distribution. In 1992, Murray and Dennis unveiled the now-legendary McLaren F1, the first road-going vehicle to wear the McLaren name.
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Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz After the F1, the next road-going vehicle to wear the McLaren name was a collaboration with Mercedes-Benz. The two companies had been working together since 1995, when Mercedes began supplying engines for the McLaren Formula One team. Debuting for the 2004 model year, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren was a modern tribute to the legendary Mercedes 300 SL “Gullwing.” The SLR McLaren gets power from a 617-hp supercharged V8 sitting entirely behind the front axle, with even more powerful special editions coming in later years. The wildest version of all was the Mercedes-Benz SLR Stirling Moss, a limited-edition tribute to the legendary British racing driver that had no windshield or roof.
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The Legend of the McLaren F1
Image Credit: McLaren Envisioned as the ultimate sports car, the McLaren F1 showcased technology that McLaren had innovated in Formula One. It was the first street-legal sports car built with a full carbon-fiber monocoque chassis; with 618 hp from a 6.1-liter BMW V12, it held the record for most powerful production car for more than a decade. In 1993, the McLaren F1 set a production-car top-speed world record, reaching 231 mph at Nardo; five years later, the F1 shattered its own record, recording a two-way average of 240 mph at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessein test track. Murray never intended to take the F1 racing, but after numerous customer requests, McLaren adapted the car for competition. The resulting McLaren F1 GTR took first, third, fourth and fifth place at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, despite making 27 hp less than the street-legal car due to Le Mans horsepower limits. From 1992 to 1998, McLaren Cars built 106 examples of the F1, including 71 road cars, 28 race cars, and seven prototypes.
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A New Generation
Image Credit: McLaren While McLaren played a pivotal role in developing the SLR, McLaren Cars itself went dormant when the last McLaren F1 rolled off the assembly line in 1998. The division was revived in 2010 as McLaren Automotive, just in time for the company to introduce its second-ever road car, the MP4-12C. This car, launched in 2011 and renamed “12C” a year later, set the formula for every McLaren road car that would follow: A two-door, two-seat supercar built around a carbon-fiber monocoque, with a twin-turbo V8 engine behind the passenger compartment sending power to the rear wheels.
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Hypercar Wars
Image Credit: Patrick Gosling In 2013, McLaren introduced the P1, meant to demonstrate the next paradigm in performance vehicles. This was the era of the hybrid hypercar, with the plug-in P1 going up against the Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder. All of these ultra-machines used electric motors to add an extra dose of torque to the gasoline-powered engine—in the P1’s case, totaling 903 horsepower.
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Today, and Tomorrow
Image Credit: McLaren Currently, McLaren divides its road-going vehicles into three categories. The GTS is luxuriously appointed for all-day driving comfort while still living up to McLaren’s racing heritage. The Artura and 750S are fully-fledged supercars, ready to attack a back road or a track day. The Ultimate Series includes ultra-limited-production models like the Senna, Speedtail, and Elva, with eye-watering performance and jaw-dropping price tags. No matter what comes next from McLaren, expect it to be heavily influenced by the company’s half-century-plus of competing at the highest levels of motorsports.
