McLaren could lean on BMW to enter the SUV segment

McLaren's on-again, off-again SUV is happening. It's referred to as a "shared performance vehicle" internally, and the sharing might not be limited to the cabin. McLaren confirmed it's open to collaborating with another brand, such as BMW, to plant its stake in the SUV segment.

The project remains at the embryonic stage of development, and it sounds like not much is set in stone at this point. Piers Scott, the head of global communications for McLaren's automotive division, told website CarScoops that executives are still "exploring a wide variety of different options" for the car. One of the questions that haven't been answered yet is the body style: it could have either two or four doors.

McLaren CEO Michael Leiters previously indicated that his team could join forces with another carmaker instead of developing a platform from scratch, and his comment spawned a long string of rumors. Could it be Tesla? Could it be Lucid? No, and no; Scott revealed that BMW is one of the contenders. While this is pure speculation, the German firm's CLAR platform is modular enough to accommodate anything from a relatively compact model such as the 2 Series to a big SUV like the X7. Clearly, there's potential for McLaren to build something on it.