Manchester gets McLaren

The McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) is to F1 fanatics what fashion week is to fashionistas. I’m a fan of both actually – but after a day at MTC, give me Ron Dennis and the new MP4-12C over Anna Wintour and a bad attitude any day. This place is the epitome of style – beauty and many beasts under one roof.

The MTC is in Woking, Surrey, a little outside of our Greater Manchester borders I know, but there’s much for Manchester, as well as the rest of Great Britain, to take pride in at this centre. Lord Norman Foster for a start.

The Stockport-born and University of Manchester-bred architect and his company, Foster and Partners, designed this Bond-like lair. It’s an incredibly well-hidden, sleek, curvaceous building which is cocooned by a billowing man-made lake.

To get to it, myself and a group of journalists were escorted in a blacked-out people carrier after coming through military style entrance gates. After a short journey through rolling green hills, there it was – as surreal as stumbling upon the Tellietubbies Tubbytronic Superdome, only this is a playground for adults.

We were met by McLaren Manchester representative Jon Crossley who told us, “When you go back to your offices, you’re not going to be able to describe what you’ve seen here. It will blow your mind.” And that it did.

Despite this event being about the nationwide launch of the new McLaren road car, you can’t help but admire both the architecture and interior design of this place before committing your attention solely to the cars. Let’s be honest – it’s an upmarket mechanics garage and there were men working on cars and car parts everywhere I looked. However, greasy overalls and chipped brew mugs this was not. Hmmm, if Carlsberg made garages...

As well as a sexy piece of architecture, MTC is also the birthplace of the first 500 or so McLaren on-road super cars – the MP4-12C. Stood in an exquisite building surrounded by millions of pounds worth of McLaren F1 back catalogue and a trophy cabinet corridor that you’d probably need an F1 car to get through, it makes you wonder why McLaren even need to venture into cars for mere mortals. It could seem like dumbing down, but in actual fact Ron Dennis, McLaren’s Godfather, is manning up.

“Despite all the trophies and great racing successes, there comes a time when the maturity of a company and its future development depends on broadening its activities,” he said. “Everything we have achieved as a well-honed and fiercely competitive team over the past three decades has prepared us for this moment. The 12C will support the long-term future of McLaren and our people.”

The McLaren family is something Ron and everyone below him – down to the toilet cleaner – takes to heart. Fiercely British and proudly so, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are the prodigal sons and home is where the heart is, here at McLaren HQ.

We were let into this circle of trust under some very Men In Black type circumstances. They did everything short of erasing our memories at the end of the tour. No photographs were allowed of Lewis and Jenson’s F1 cars, which were being honed to perfection ahead of last Sunday’s British Grand Prix where they came second and fourth respectively. Apparently even my old Motorola v300 camera phone could depict enough tweaks on a car carcass to send Ferrari into frenzy. We were under strict orders and I for one wasn’t about to ruffle the feathers of Ron the don.

Instead we were allowed to photograph the immense collection of vintage McLaren cars scattered around the showroom. We wanted to get in the cars, laid out in this F1 fantasy land, but seeing names such as Ayrton Senna, David Coulthard and Bruce McLaren among the list of racing legends, somehow didn’t make us feel worthy. Like the HQ itself, the cars are as intimidating as they are impressive.

The MP4-12C on the other hand is a car for everyone to enjoy. It’s been built with the brains behind F1 and those lucky few will buy it hopefully not just because they’ve got a bit of spare change, but because of the staggering stats:

• 0-200kmh under 10 seconds
• 200kmh-0 under 5 seconds
• 100kmh-0 under 3 seconds and 30metres
• Top speed over 200mph
• ¼ mile around 11q seconds
• CO2 under 300g/km
• Dry weight around 1,300kg
• Maximum power 600PS
• Maximum torque 600Nm at 3,500rpm

That said, as Dan Connell (global press officer, McLaren Automotive) pointed out, for some fast car collectors, it’s a status thing. “Some men buy cars and don’t even drive them that much. It’s so they can say I’ve got one and you haven’t,” he said.

To give you a bit more non-technical insight into the belly of this beast, it’s basically been made with the same sentiments that you’d expect of the track cars – to optimise driving to the fullest extent. It’s not all about mechanical mumbo jumbo and pleasing Lewis Hamilton. No, this car is “accessible” says McLaren Automotive's programme director, Mark Vinnels, who would rather test this car behind a Sunday driver down a cobbled street than at Silverstone.

“Supercars are often intimidating – cramped with the bonnet too far away. We’re fanatical about weight. Weight is the enemy of a sports car. We follow weight targets. That’s absolute detail. Even washers are weighed.”

The first 500 hundred of these bad boys will be handcrafted in McLaren’s new purpose-built factory. Production commences at three cars a day in the existing factory but this will rise to a maximum of 4,000 a year from 2012. McLaren will launch a new model or derivative each year until the full range is in place in the middle of the decade.

Until then, the first customers will get their hands on the first thousand 12Cs in spring 2011. The MP4-12C is the only carbon-based road car to go on sale at what is actually a low price of £150,000. Lewis apparently already has his eye on one and so do I – although I may just have to spray paint my Ford Puma burnt orange and squint a bit instead. You can but dream.

Sytner Group, which has a Rolls-Royce dealership in Canute Place, Knutsford, will represent McLaren Manchester. The dealership will cover the North and North West regions of England and also Scotland.