Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
McLaren Automotive is motoring ahead with plans to produce an ‘entry level’ sports car into its portfolio.
This was confirmed by the British company – backed by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat – as it celebrated the opening of its new showroom in the kingdom.
Al Ghassan Motors’ new McLaren Manama facility was officially unveiled at Moda Mall, part of the Bahrain World Trade Centre, during the grand prix weekend.
GulfWeekly was the first newspaper to reveal the ambitious bid to go head-to-head with Porsche to try to woo potential customers away from the iconic 9ll and now, more than 12-months later, the plans are officially out of the bag.
“We can confirm that we are in the final development stages of a car with the codename P13,” said Mark Harrison, McLaren Automotive regional director-Middle East & Africa.
“This will be an entry-level high-performance sports car and will be at a lower price point than the 12C.
“McLaren has spotted that there is a market for a comfortable, practical, yet innovative and very exciting high-performance sports car at between the £100,000- £150,000 (BD58,000- BD87,000) range.
“This is the car that will be presented in 2015 and will complete the initial range of McLarens, moving production from around 1,500 cars per year to 4,000 per year at the McLaren Technology Centre in England.”
The popular BD100,000 McLaren 12C and convertible Spider are rivals to Ferrari. Following the recent Middle East debut of the $1million (BD376,000) McLaren P1 supercar in Bahrain, a second McLaren
‘supercar’ was also presented at the launch event. Having debuted in the kingdom at the 2010 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, the McLaren MP4-25 Formula 1 car driven by world champion Jenson Button has now returned to the kingdom to be on display at McLaren Manama, as revealed in MotoringWeekly last week.
It is considered a coup for Bahrain as, although McLaren Automotive showcases its genuine sister racing machines in all its centres around the globe the parent company tends to be precious about its technological innovations and having such a recent race-winning model on display is not the norm.
The highlight of the opening event was an appearance by Button and his racing colleague Sergio Perez, who arrived in an Orange McLaren 12C Spider to officially open the showroom alongside senior executives from the company, dealers and investors.
Mahmood Hashim Al Kooheji, chief executive officer of Mumtalakat, said: “McLaren Automotive is one of our flagship investments at Mutalakat.
“We are delighted that the company, with its retail partner for Bahrain, Al Ghassan Motors, has decided to open a unique and exciting showroom that is a testament to McLaren’s engineering prowess. With this addition, the Middle East network of dealers is well equipped to meet the strong demand for McLaren’s high-performance sports cars in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia.”
