Fresh off unveiling the 720S in Geneva, McLaren has been a little evasive about their upcoming three-seat “hyperluxury GT” car and its place in the company’s storied timeline of track-slaying machines. They insist the BP23 is not the official successor to the legendary F1, despite the fact that it will have the same number of seats, the same limited production run (106), and claim the same crown as the fastest McLaren to date. And thanks to a report in Automotive News we now know it’s also going to carry a pretty substantial price tag to match—£2,000,000, or just north of $2,500,000 at today’s exchange rates.
When rumors of the return of a three-seat hypercar from McLaren first broke last summer, everyone seemed to believe this would be the return of the F1, which you’ll remember held the fastest production car record from 1998 until 2005 when Bugatti snatched it away with the Veyron. Since the company started making their own cars again in 2011, they’ve focused more on lightweight corner-carvers starting with the 12C up through their current Sports Series model lineup today. That’s not to say these cars aren’t stupid fast, but they’re not designed to live comfortably above 200 mph.
And again, McLaren won’t give a straight answer yet about whether that’s the plan for the BP23. That’s partly to protect the image of the P1, which was marketed as the true heir to the F1 when it debuted to great fanfare in 2012, something CEO Mike Flewitt has pointed out in multiple interviews. He’ll go as far as the word “homage,” but that’s it.
But keep this in mind—the P1 put out 904 horsepower, and the BP23 figures to have a more powerful hybrid setup, meaning we could see north of 1,000 horsepower here. Then there’s all this talk from Flewitt about how it’s going to be an “incredible road car” with “very low drag,” which is basically the same way Gordon Murray pitched the F1 in the late 1980s. And finally we return to that $2.5 million price tag, which is the same as the Bugatti Chiron, a car that will presumably make its own run at the record next year.
“The BP23 won’t be the fastest round a track. It’s not a track car. It’s a luxury hyper-GT. And we’re not doing a Chiron here. It has to be a McLaren,” Flewitt told Top Gear last week. Well then.
Whatever’s coming, 106 very rich people have already put down five-figure deposits to secure their spot. It’s going to be a long wait, though—deliveries don’t begin until 2019.