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McLaren Automotive, partly-owned by sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, has celebrated the 20,000th car to be hand-assembled at its McLaren Production Centre (MPC) in England.
It was a right-hand drive 600LT Spider in Chicane Grey from the sportscar and supercar company’s Sports Series line-up. Launched only last summer as the next chapter in the McLaren ‘Longtail’ story.
This latest milestone represents ‘a further significant achievement’ for the British marque and comes eight years after the first McLaren road car left the Production Centre in Woking, Surrey in July 2011.
Mike Flewitt, CEO for McLaren Automotive, said: “Achieving our 20,000th car built is an important milestone for McLaren Automotive. Last year we hand-assembled just over 4,800 cars and we plan to maintain around 5,000 cars a year for the immediate future.
“While demand for our products continues to grow, we aim to balance that to maintain exclusivity for our brand and our customers. It is fitting that we celebrate this achievement with a 600LT Spider which has been a huge success for us with all production slots for the coupe variant now sold out.”
Although McLaren’s production reached around 4,800 cars in 2018 to meet rising global demand, output will remain around 5,000 a year into the next decade before increasing to 6,000 before the end of the current Track25 business plan in order to maintain exclusivity.
Automotive now employs 2,300 people and, helped by a diverse product porfolio and more customers using the brand’s bespoke division McLaren Special Operations, contributed a significant proportion of McLaren Group’s overall approximate BD574m of revenue in 2018.
The introduction of a second production shift in 2016 to meet rising global demand for McLaren vehicles has seen production double from around 10 cars to over 20 a day. More than 90 per cent of vehicles built in Woking are exported to more than 32 markets around the world.
As reported in MotoringWeekly, the new McLaren GT – with a starting price of BD85,000 excluding VAT – was unveiled at a special Ghabga gathering held in Bahrain with key VIPs and stakeholders in the Middle East amongst the first people in the world to have seen the marque’s first grand tourer.
“It’s testament to the hard work, dedication and commitment from our McLaren Production Centre employees that we’re now able to produce 20 cars a day across many different vehicle types and variants,” added Dr Jens Ludmann, chief operating officer, McLaren Automotive.
The state-of-the-art McLaren Production Centre was designed by Foster + Partners and took 14 months to build from breaking ground in 2010 to July 18, 2011 when the first car, a McLaren 12C, was approved for shipping.
