By Miles Downard
The Geneva motor show is under way in Switzerland. The annual extravaganza always brings out the biggest and best news manufacturerâs wish to be in the public realm. Something that caught my eye this week was a talk by McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt in which he announced an update to the BP23 project.
That stands for âBespoke Project 2: 3 seatsâ in case it wasnât obvious. Itâs the code name for the companyâs new flagship hypercar. Itâll have a 3 seat layout, in what I imagined would be a recreation of the iconic McLaren F1. However Mike was quick to rule the successor title as out of the question. It will also be the fastest McLaren ever, like the F1 at the time. And be the most powerful, once again like the F1 but definitely not the successor. A hommage perhaps.
âIt will be the most powerful, most advanced hybrid powertrain weâve ever done, inside a low-drag, super aero-efficient body: BP23 will be the fastest car weâve ever made,â he said.
The McLaren P1 currently runs a hybrid system capable of 677kW. So thereâs the target of course. More than that seems like pure lunacy, but who am I to judge. What seems more crazy than anything else in the project is that the BP23 isnât even a track car, but rather a luxury hyper car. So what all that power is for Iâm not sure.
Interior will be all new and nothing like weâve seen before thanks to the central driving position.
âWe have already built a rough interior buck out of bits of wood,â Flewitt says, âand it feels a really special position to sit.â
The first BP23 customer will take delivery in 2019 at a cost of ÂŁ1.65m. There will be just 106 in all â no spiders, no special editions, this is it (it just so happens that only 106 F1âs were built)