Despite all the uncertainty surrounding McLaren right now – the cash-strapped company recently put its iconic headquarters on sale – it seems like the Gaydon-based supercar maker’s first series-production hybrid supercar is still on track for launch in the first half of 2021.
While it still doesn’t have a name yet, or at least not officially, the company says that its upcoming “High-Performance Hybrid (HPH) supercar” has now entered final stages of testing which includes running on public roads.
McLaren remains tight lipped on the specifications of the upcoming hybrid supercar, though we do know that hybrid powertrain will feature a brand-new V6 engine and an unspecified number of electric motors, promising to deliver “astonishing levels of performance and a uniquely intense driver experience”, while also providing a “medium-range” pure EV driving mode.
No performance figures were divulged, but McLaren says that it will sit between the McLaren GT and the 720S – the latter from the Super Series – which gives us a pretty good idea of where it stands. The hybrid model will most likely replace the existing 570S with a new series designation; the Sports Series will cease at the end of the year after the end of production of the 620R.
The hybrid supercar will also be the first model to be built upon the McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture (MCLA), the company’s latest carbon fibre tub that is designed and built completely inhouse in the McLaren Composites Technologies Centre (MCTC) in Sheffield, England.
Built using the latest processes and techniques for added rigidity, the MCLA platform is designed specifically to offset the weight penalty from the lithium-ion battery packs of an electrified powertrain, and will underpin the brand’s next generation of hybrid supercars coming to the market over the years.
“This all-new McLaren supercar is the distillation of everything we have done to date; all that we have learned and achieved,” commented McLaren Automotive CEO, Mike Flewitt. “We see this new McLaren as a true ‘next generation’ supercar and cannot wait to show it to customers.”
As for looks, we can still see the prominent McLaren touches on the heavily camouflaged prototype, which to us looks quite a lot like the 570S. However, it does have a few subtle differences of its own, such as the headlights that are set deeper in the housing, a front fascia with quite a bit less grille, and the twin exhausts that shoot right out the back.
