Until now, McLaren's upcoming "Hyper-GT" car -- which is set to be faster than the legendary 243 mph McLaren F1 -- has been referred to by the codename BP23. That's a name that was never going to stick, so the British supercar manufacturer has announced the car will actually be called the Speedtail when it goes on sale.
The Speedtail will be a three-seater, the same as the F1, with the driver sitting centrally and the other two seats being slightly behind and to either side. McLaren's CEO Mike Flewitt insisted at this year's Geneva Motor Show that although what we now know as the Speedtail will pay homage to the company's first road car, it won't be a direct successor to the F1. Instead, Flewitt says the Speedtail will be "a car designed for longer journeys, but with the high levels of performance and driver engagement expected of any McLaren." Basically, everything is pointing towards the Speedtail being McLaren's answer to the Bugatti Chiron.
Only 106 Speedtails will be produced by McLaren, and despite their eye-watering price of $2.1 each, every single one of them is already spoken for. To be fair, for that price McLaren says the Speedtail will not only be the fastest road car the company has ever built, it will also be the most luxurious.
Power and torque figures are what everyone wants to know about the new car, but at the moment McLaren is staying tight-lipped on the subject. What we do know is the Speedtail will be powered by a hybrid powerplant that's likely to see an electric motor mated with the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 petrol engine already seen in the new 720S. A number of new technologies are also being trialed for the Speedtail, such as digital rearview mirrors.
Every one of the 106 cars will be specially customized to their future owners' tastes by McLaren's Special Operations unit. And although production isn't set to get underway until towards the end of 2019, a full public reveal of the car is expected before the end of 2018.
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