Yahoo Autos McLaren Teases New Hypercar Successor to F1, P1
Hard as it may be to believe — in part because the automaker continues to find ways to celebrate it — it's been almost nine years since production wrapped on the McLaren P1 hypercar.
It certainly doesn't hurt that the P1 is as exotic and thrilling as it was a decade ago, mind you, even in the face of ever-advancing supercars from other brands. But when you're competing at the cutting edge of the sports car market, you can't coast on past achievements forever. McLaren has officially announced plans for a new range-topping hypercar — one that the automaker will reveal in less than two weeks.
McLaren spilled the beans in a YouTube video that dropped on Wednesday, September 25 that asks, "What Makes a '1' Car?" While the one-minute clip is heavy on dramatic music, footage of talent — odds are good you'll recognize more than a couple faces — it's light on details. The only new fact comes at the end, with a time and date: 1pm British summer time, October 6th. (That's 8am in New York and 5am in L.A., in case you were curious.)
Of course, the news shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who's been following the brand. Generally speaking, McLaren has divided its lineup into three tiers of speed machines: the Sport Series, established by the 570S and currently filled by the Artura; the Super Series, which was created with the MP4-12C and now present in the form of the 750S; and the Ultimate Series, the first of which was the P1 before the role was filled by a number of increasingly wild machines like the Elva, Senna and Speedtail. (The GTS grand tourer just kind of... sits off to the side.)
Then again, while the Senna could utterly destroy tracks and the Speedtail reportedly push 250 mph, neither could be considered a proper successor to the P1, as neither quite moved the hypercar ball down the field the way that car did. Based on this video, however, it seems as though McLaren is aiming for the new vehicle to deliver a similar level of game-changing technology and design as the P1 and F1 brought to the table.
As for the name... well, given the video, it seems almost guaranteed that the new car will have "1" in its name, just like its predecessors. Considering "F" comes 10 letters before "P" in the alphabet, we briefly wondered if McLaren would go another 10 letters deep for the new vehicle — until we realized BMW might have a problem with "Z1."
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