No more Honda power for McLaren road cars

You might also like

Vehicle registrations rise 20 pct y-o-y in October

09/11/2016

Takata airbag crisis prompts increased checks on imports

05/10/2016

LONDON: McLaren has planned out enlarging its method one engine contract with Honda to production cars. The British manufacturer’s racing arm will change from Mercedes-Benz to Honda power for the 2015 season, but Jolyon Nash, director for global sales and marketing for the brand, says there will be no Honda power for McLaren road cars.
“There’s no intention for a partnership with Honda,” Nash says.
“It won’t happen. I mean that in the nicest way, as we are an independent company – we produce pure McLarens.
“There is no need for us to go into partnership with another manufacturer.”
McLaren and Honda previously worked together in Formula One, with the Japanese brand providing power that helped drivers such as Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost win world championship titles.
Former McLaren designer Gordon Murray later created the brand’s first road car, the McLaren F1, and asked Honda to provide power for the supercar before settling on a 6.1-litre V12 built by BMW.
The brand’s racing alliance with Mercedes-Benz also led to the V8-powered McLaren-Mercedes SLR Supercar, which featured a V8 engine and plenty of racing know-how.
The new McLaren-Honda tie-up has had a horrid time in testing, completing just a handful of laps in a recent post-season hit out at Abu Dhabi as it was blighted by technical gremlins.
But Nash is adamant that the manufacturer can succeed on track with Honda
There’s a high level of confidence about or potential in the sport next year,” he says.
“After all, it’s a renewing of one of the most successful partnerships in F1, McLaren and Honda.
“The relationship is purely a formula one relationship.”
The reborn McLaren road car range features cars with a twin-turbocharged V8 engine and carbon-fibre chassis developed by the brand.
Nash says McLaren plans to keep things “pure” and in-house, and that it will not push into new segments that compromise it’s ideology.
“We’re a sports car company,” he says.
“I don’t think we’d ever do an SUV, I just can’t conceive an SUV. I don’t imagine that McLaren would produce such a car, or a four door car or even a three door car.”