McLaren has once again said no to the SUV.

Last August, McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt made it very clear that McLaren has no plans to offer an SUV. He said, in no uncertain terms, that unless he’s convinced that they could make an SUV that is the best in its class and still be profitable, then McLaren won’t do it.

While rival luxury supercar makers such as Lamborghini and Porsche can fall back on their parent companies for SUV technology, McLaren would have to start from scratch. That sort of investment, according to Flewitt, would make any SUV McLaren makes a profit loser.

And yet, even when the CEO of the company says they won’t make an SUV, rumors of a secret black book R&D plan to make an SUV to topple the Lamborghini Urus persist. Once again, a McLaren exec has felt it necessary to put their foot down to stamp out those vicious rumors.

“I can easily answer that and say no,” said McLaren’s head of design Mark Roberts. Speaking at the Toronto Motor Show during their inaugural luxury and supercar forum, Roberts made it abundantly clear that there would be no McLaren SUV.

“We really do deliver on the ultimate driving experience. For us, it means no compromise. An SUV doesn’t allow us to deliver on that. It’s not a no-compromise kind of vehicle.”

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What McLaren would do instead would be to deliver uncompromising performance from 18 new cars by the year 2025, according to the British carmaker’s Track25 business plan. The 600LT is the latest car to be seen in that plan, but the upcoming Speedtail supercar promises to be a game changer.

McLaren SUV
via Pina Nicola Pira

With 1,035 horsepower from a hybrid engine, the Speedtail will be the true successor to the legendary McLaren P1. It will also have a central driving seat just as the P1 did, and a top speed of over 250 mph.

The Speedtail might just be the last hybrid car that McLaren makes. Roberts also explained that McLaren would jump into the electric car game rather than muck about in hybridization, although he cautioned “it’s going to be a while before we release it as a production car.”

(Source: Automotive News)

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