McLaren looks to expand line-up beyond new GT model

However, he is open about future plans to downsize McLaren’s internal combustion engines as electrification plays an ever more important role. A move to solid-state batteries (“2023 if I’m being optimistic, 2025 being realistic”) is described by Flewitt as “a game changer” that will likely make the packaging of such a car dramatically easier.

McLaren’s first series-production hybrid (after the limited-run P1 and Speedtail) will be launched in 2021, with the electrics working with the engine to power the rear axle. Flewitt said he has no choice but to adopt hybrids, because global emissions legislation means a company with no small cars to help reduce the average fleet CO2 would simply be banned from sale in large parts of the world without it.

“That said, while I don’t like the 40kg weight gain, it does allow us more power, better response and more linear performance response,” he said. “What’s more, you will be staggered by the CO2 output. I can’t give you numbers, but think of a supercar with the same CO2 as a [Ford] Fiesta.”

In time, McLaren will also introduce an electrically driven front axle at a likely weight penalty of 120kg, but this will massively improve traction and therefore performance, especially in the wet, as well as provide a huge boost in energy regeneration, meaning it should be able to maintain peak performance even when electricity stored while plugged in has been used.

Flewitt has also spoken of the LT version of the McLaren 720S, which he said will come to market at the end of 2020. He confirmed the power gain will be “at least” as much as that which turned the 570S into the 600LT, so expect a minimum of 740bhp.

However, he said his engineers are struggling to lose the 100kg now expected of LT models “because we made the 720S as light as we could in the first place”. He reckoned they’ll get close to the three-figure weight drop but perhaps not all the way.

McLaren is also battling to find an aesthetically pleasing way to incorporate the 600LT’s trademark top-exit exhausts with the active rear aerodynamics the car will use (“I’ve seen three proposals so far and rejected them all…”). Nor has he decided whether to specify a production limit as he did with the 675LT. “Part of me wants to keep it open as Porsche does with its GT models," Flewitt said, "but we may limit it to something like 750 of each [Coupé and Spider].”