A decade on from the P1, pictured above, McLaren is preparing to announce a successor to its first hybrid hypercar.
The British supercar maker published a teaser video this week (25 September) asking “what makes a ‘1’ car?”. The one-minute clip focuses on the McLaren F1 and P1, but crucially it ends with a date and a time – 6 October, 13:00 BST.
Why would McLaren reveal a new car on a Sunday? It looks like the company is leaning into its Formula On history here, as that date marks exactly 50 years since the 1974 United States Grand Prix, which was the final round of a season that saw McLaren win its first F1 World Championship. It was also the day McLaren driver Emerson Fittipaldi won his second Drivers' Championship.
The teaser comes just a couple of days after McLaren published another YouTube video, this time focused on the P1, and a week earlier it was the F1’s turn for a couple of minutes in the spotlight. Whatever’s going on at Woking, it looks like the company is in a nostalgic mood for its ’1 cars’.
It is understood the new car, known internally as the P18, will be a successor to the P1, and that it will become McLaren’s new flagship roadgoing hypercar. According to Automotive News, information about the P18 was presented to McLaren dealers in the US back in April, and that it will be powered by a new, high-revving V8 engine. But instead of being related to the V8 used in almost all street-legal McLarens since the MP4-12C of 2011, the P18’s engine is said to be all-new, and also unrelated to the V6 hybrid of the McLaren Artura.
The report also claimed the P18 will employ a hybrid system that is much lighter than the Artura’s, and total output will be over 1,000 horsepower. That figure isn’t too surprising, given the decade-old P1 produces 903 hp from its V8 and what is now a relatively dated motor and battery pack.
The P18 is claimed to feature a pair of gullwing-style doors, instead of the dihedral doors used by other McLaren cars. Although the car will be revealed on 6 October, the first deliveries are not expected (in the US at least) until early-2026. For context, McLaren revealed the P1 as a pre-production concept in September 2012, at the Paris motor show, followed by the production version in early-2013 (where it shared the Geneva motor show with the Ferrari LaFerrari). Production of customer cars began in October that year.
It is likely that the P18 will feature a hybrid system with technology derived from Formula One, and that it will have a greater electric-only range than the 6.8 miles the P1 could manage on battery power alone. Performance statistics are likely to include a 0-60 mph time closer to two seconds than three and a top speed comfortably above 200 mph. An all-carbon tub and body is to be expected, but for now there’s no indication to suggest McLaren will use the three-seat layout of its F1and Speedtail.
Instagram posts published by prospective owners invited by McLaren to see the car suggest the P18 will be limited to 399 examples, slightly higher than the 375 production run of the P1.
As for the name, McLaren is leaning heavily into the ‘1’ theme, but with F1 and P1 already accounted for, we’re left wondering where it could go next. It has already used X-1, which was the name of a curious one-off based on the MP4-12C and revealed back in 2012 as an example of what McLaren’s Special Operations department is capable of.
A1, C1, H1, M1, R1 and S1 have already been used by other cars and motorbikes. What name has McLaren settled on? We’ll hopefully find out in just a few days.
