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McLaren Automotive will use its Paris Motor Show appearance tomorrow to preview its next generation ultimate supercar – the P1 – which takes much of its technological and spiritual inspiration from the company’s Racing Division, writes Stan Szecowka.
P1 has one simple goal: to be the best driver’s car in the world on road and track.
At the Paris Motor Show, Mondial de l’Automobile 2012, P1 is previewed as a design study. Next year a production version, which the company aims to put on sale within 12 months, will be revealed.
“P1 will be the result of 50 years of racing and road car heritage,” said McLaren Automotive executive chairman Ron Dennis.
“Twenty years ago we raised the supercar performance bar with the McLaren F1 and our goal with P1 is to redefine it once again.’
More information will be released following the McLaren Automotive press conference scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at the Paris Motor Show.
It comes, however, seven months after GulfWeekly revealed the plans exclusively to readers following an interview in the UK with McLaren’s design director Frank Stephenson who said that the new supercar would feature ‘more exotic materials’.
In Bahrain, McLaren dealers Al Ghassan Motors will be opening a new showroom at Moda Mall in the near future.
“Our aim is not necessarily to be the fastest in absolute top speed but to be the quickest and most rewarding series production road car on a circuit,” said McLaren Automotive managing director Antony Sheriff. “It is the true test of a supercar’s all round ability and a much more important technical statement.
“It will be the most exciting, most capable, most technologically-advanced and most dynamically-accomplished supercar ever made.”
When P1 goes into production next year at the company’s state-of-the-art manufacturing plant near Woking in the UK, it will sit above the BD100,000 12C and 12C Spider, in terms of both price and performance.
McLaren Automotive is partly-owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat and its executives are said to be ‘thrilled’ by the company’s success to date and its future plans.
As revealed exclusively in GulfWeekly, a marketplace rival to the popular Porsche 911 is likely to be next on the agenda, McLaren’s very own ‘entry level’ sports car costing around BD50,000.
