Motoring Weekly

Magnificent home for marque

October 18 - 24, 2017
1790 views
Gulf Weekly Magnificent home for marque

Gulf Weekly Kristian Harrison
By Kristian Harrison

McLaren has a new home in Bahrain after it officially launched its new state-of-the-art showroom in Tubli this week.

Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, is the majority shareholder of the McLaren Group and the British sports car marque considers the kingdom as its second home.

Kanoo Motors unveiled the stylish complex, which serves as both a showroom for McLaren’s fleet and as a service facility with a full workshop.

Head of McLaren – Kanoo Motors, Trevor Fletcher, spoke exclusively to GulfWeekly about his delight at finding a new base in Bahrain and revealed that the MODA Mall showroom will close at the end of the month.

“This facility here has always belonged to the family, so we’ve completely stripped it out and rebuilt it from the ground up. It’s taken almost a year but we now have a home that we are very, very proud of.”

The inauguration was overseen by chairman of McLaren, Shaikh Mohammed Bin Essa Al Khalifa, Kanoo Motors directors Ebrahim M Kanoo and Talal F Kanoo, and managing director of McLaren Middle East, Africa & Latin America, Andreas Bareis.

Andreas said: “We are on track to achieve the objectives set in our business plan and the opening of McLaren Bahrain is an important part of this strategy. Not only is Bahrain a key market for us in the Middle East, it is also the home of our majority shareholder.”

The exclusive launch also witnessed the first appearance of the 570S Spider, McLaren’s latest addition to the Sports Series range, in Bahrain much to the delight of the assembled members of the media, customers and executives.

Shaikh Mohammed said: “We are delighted to have such an impressive facility for McLaren in Bahrain, having recently become the majority shareholder on the group. Kanoo Motors has reaffirmed their outstanding capabilities with their attention to detail and long term development plans for the brand in Bahrain.”

The new 3,000sqm showroom and aftersales facility, located opposite the Toyota Plaza in Tubli, was designed to meet McLaren’s international standards.

The fully-fledged service centre, Kanoo Performance, boasts sophisticated and advanced automotive equipment run by highly-trained, McLaren P1-certified, technical staff.

The facility is also proving popular with the owners of other performance car brands too who are using the skills of the mechanics to customise their prized possessions.

For more information on McLaren Bahrain, visit www.bahrain.mclaren.com







More on Motoring Weekly