McLaren and BMW Could Be Teaming Up for New Supercar; Probably BS
Recently, British magazine CAR posted a story claiming that BMW and McLaren were teaming up to build a new supercar. They point to the previous history the brand had together with the creation of the mighty F1, and claim that BMW is excited about getting a halo supercar, but can’t spare the budget for a clean sheet design so soon after the costly i Series. While it makes for a cool story, I think I am going to have stand in and call bullshit.
Let’s start with the meat of what is happening here. CAR claims that McLaren will be giving BMW its new carbon tub and chassis from the second-generation 650S, and the BMW will be putting its own engine into the new body. The claim a quad turbo system attached to the company’s current 4.0-liter V8 would be good for 750 horsepower. The only issue with this is that the BMW car would be positioned directly against McLaren’s own 650S replacement, and why would the British company give a direct competitor such a leg up?
Secondly, while McLaren deals exclusively with carbon-tubbed cars, BMW is widely regarded as the current experts in CFRP construction thanks to the very i Series project that supposedly killed the bankroll for a new supercar. I see no reason why the i8 chassis can’t be modified fairly inexpensively to handle a much larger powerplant. Why does BMW need McLaren at all for a carbon chassis?
“But what about the F1?!” I hear you cry. Well that just helps to solidify my other points. When BMW created the motor for the F1, they were helping to create a car that was so stratospherically above any project that they were building that it didn’t matter. The F1 would not be competing with any other car in the market it was going to be so fast and powerful. It was perfect for BMW to stretch its engineering legs and gain mindshare, all while helping out another company and making some money. There was absolutely zero chance that the McLaren f1 could ever cannibalize a single sale from BMW. It was a win-win for both companies.
This new matchup has the exact opposite problem. McLaren only sells a few thousand cars every year, and it makes zero sense for it to spend all the time and money to create a new platform, then immediately hand it to another company to make a directly competing product. In this scenario BMW sees major benefits, while McLaren sees almost zero positive gain.
As cool as it would be to see a quad turbo BMW M car built on a McLaren chassis, I just don’t see it. Perhaps when McLaren builds its new platform, it could give the workings of the old 650S to BMW, but that is the only way I see this making financial sense for the team in Woking.
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