A key milestone was marked last month at the £50 million McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC) in Yorkshire, which from 2019 will start producing carbon-fibre ‘tubs’ for McLaren Automotive, the British manufacturer of luxury sports cars and super-cars (
www.latest.mclaren.com).
The company’s chief executive, Mike Flewitt, hosted the MCTC’s inauguration ceremony, which culminated in the recently unveiled McLaren Senna road car (named after Ayrton Senna) performing a series of ‘expertly choreographed doughnuts’ to leave a trail of ‘fresh’ Pirelli tyre rubber on the new centre’s floor to ‘christen’ it.
Also featured was Ayrton Senna’s original Grand Prix-winning McLaren MP4/5 race car from 1989.
The event provided the first glimpse inside the new composites technology centre, which will be home to McLaren’s second production facility (the other one is in Woking).
Over 40 McLaren employees are already based in Sheffield, housed at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, where they are advancing the process for creating the lightweight carbon-fibre Monocage structures at the heart of McLaren cars.
When it is fully operational, around 200 people will work at the MCTC, which will supply carbon-fibre tubs to the McLaren Production Centre in Woking, where the company’s sport cars and super-cars are hand-assembled.
Carbon fibre has long been a part of McLaren’s DNA, the company having introduced the very first carbon-fibre chassis into Formula One in 1981.
The material’s strength and light weight mean that the company has never made a racing car, sports car or super-car without it since.
Also last month, McLaren Automotive announced that it had recorded another record year of growth, selling a total of 3,340 cars in 2017.
This performance follows the introduction last year of new models in each of the three established McLaren product families: the 570S Spider was added to the Sports Series, the 720S replaced the 650S in the Super Series, and the track-focused McLaren Senna joined the Ultimate Series.
Mr Flewitt said: “Today is an important milestone for everyone at McLaren Automotive. It marks the continued development of the current 2,100-strong company, and it will bring new jobs to the Sheffield region.”