McLaren’s New Grand Tourer Will Be Called (Wait For It!)… The McLaren GT

McLaren’s latest road car will be called the McLaren GT, and is to get its full unveil May 15 at 1300 BST. Details about the new car so far remain thin on the ground, though McLaren promises auspiciously that it will be the “McLaren of Grand Tourers” and will “redefine the rules” of Grand Touring. It also has confirmed that the new car will “share DNA” with the impressive 250mph Speedtail Hyper-GT that it launched last year. McLaren says also that the GT has applied “renowned McLaren engineering and dynamic attributes alongside high-quality materials and exceptional comfort”. Of McLaren Automotive’s ‘product families’ among its cars for sale, the McLaren GT is positioned alongside Sports Series and Super Series.

In addition, McLaren has released some pre-launch teasers of the GT, with photos released of the attractive-looking new car in a camouflage livery as well as, more recently, a silhouetted shot of the car’s rear. It’s also released a teaser video, again showing the car in silhouette. These suggest that the new car resembles a grand tourer equivalent of McLaren’s 720S, with elements also of the 520S as well as the 570GT. It has a large rear wing integrated into the bodywork as well as large tailpipes, which in a departure from recent McLarens with top-exit exhausts, are placed low beneath the bumper.

The McLaren GT is the fourth new car to be confirmed under McLaren Automotive’s Track25 business plan that was announced at last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. This stated that the company would invest £1.2bn in research and development to deliver 18 new cars or derivatives by the end of the year 2025. The three Track25 cars already launched are the Speedtail as well as the 720S Spider, both launched in 2018, plus this year’s 600LT Spider. Its previously-confirmed track-only Senna GTR has also been unveiled. As with all McLaren vehicles, the GT has been hand-assembled at the McLaren Production Centre in Woking, near London, with a lightweight carbon fiber chassis.

McLaren is promoting the new car using the hashtag ‘#NEWRULES’ and has declared that its first rule of these is to “never let tradition hold you back”. McLaren made its name initially in Formula 1 with multiple championship successes over several decades, before buildings it first road car, the McLaren F1, in 1993. The McLaren Automotive company was launched in 2010 and now, with several models introduced, it is the largest part of the McLaren Group.

Images courtesy of McLaren