What's the news?
Here's something tremendously exciting - this single teaser image is for the replacement to the mighty McLaren P1.
We don't know much more at this stage, such as the car's name or its precise specifications, as McLaren will confirm those key details before the year is out. However, the new vehicle is part of the company's Track22 business plan - the company's business model that will see it launching 15 fresh models between 2016 and 2022, the first of which is the blinding 720S - and it is designated for the Ultimate Series.
For those who aren't aware of McLaren's three-tier hierarchy of cars, Ultimate is the top level; it sits above the core Super Series (720S and the like) and then the Sports Series, which is home to the 540C, 570GT and 570S. Only two vehicles have gone in the Ultimate Series before, which are the P1 and its track-focused sibling, the P1 GTR. So you can see just how special this newcomer is going to be...
McLaren says the car, to be publicly revealed in the first quarter of 2018, has a mission, which is to be 'the most extreme, track-concentrated road car McLaren has yet designed'. It will be the 'ultimate' track car but it will remain road legal, the British supercar manufacturer claiming that 'daily usability is being sacrificed to give the most intensive driver experience around a circuit'. It's also supposed to have 'brutal' styling. We are liking the sound of this thing more and more...
Like all Ultimate Series models, production of the new vehicle will be strictly limited in numbers and, if you're thinking you can rustle up the likely million Euros and more you'll need to buy one, think again; they've all been assigned. Indeed, the 2018 track hypercar will precede another Ultimate Series model a little further down the line, which is codenamed BP23 and which is aiming to be the 'world's first Hyper-GT'. Guess what? All examples of BP23 have also already been allocated to a lucky few.
Anything else?
Ultimately, of course, the 2018 McLaren will be the second successor, after the P1, to the seminal Gordon Murray-designed F1 of the 1990s. So it has quite a heritage to live up to.