Andrew Frankel: McLaren’s W1 to push the hypercar limits

To McLaren for a full guided tour of its W1. This is the machine intended to occupy the same space in the market today as did the P1 nearly a dozen years ago. Which is to say it is meant to be the ultimate all-purpose hypercar, as at home on road as on track, possessing performance in both environments quite beyond the ken of all conventionally quick machines.

McLaren always said it would not launch a successor to the P1 until technology had moved far enough for the new car to significantly advance the art and, in bald statistical terms, it certainly seems to have done so. With over a year’s development to go (deliveries start in 2026) it is already lapping the Nardò handling circuit 3sec quicker than did the entirely track-orientated Senna, yet McLaren has selected the super smooth 720S as the W1’s benchmark target for ride comfort.

But perhaps the most befuddling fact about it is that, according to my calculations based on McLaren’s own acceleration data, it should be able to hit 200mph from rest in not much more than 14sec; this despite the traction limitation of rear-wheel drive meaning the car won’t even be able to deploy full power until travelling at thoroughly illegal speeds. Thirty years ago I recorded a 0-200mph run in the McLaren F1 in 28sec dead, the first time a production car in the UK had ever been able to accelerate from rest to that speed in a single run. The time was almost irrelevant: the fact it did it at all was simply stupendous. Yet now that time has been almost halved.

There remains a broader question: who cares? I have never known a commodity more overrated and therefore devalued than brute acceleration. Thirty years ago it was fascinating to drive something like an F1 because we were still at a stage when a faster car was a more exciting car. Today when the latest Tesla Model 3 would blitz a McLaren F1 off the line, and anything faster is just violent, uncomfortable and frequently nausea-inducing, pursuing this particular line of enquiry any further seems entirely pointless. So if I am lucky enough to be one of the chosen few to drive the W1, I won’t be dwelling overly long on how fast it goes. It is how it feels, and how it makes me feel that will determine its worth.

“The new Renault 5 is an example of retro design at its very best”

Those who thought all the troubles that have for decades beset Lotus would be blown away when the company passed into the ownership of the same Chinese giant that owned and has to date done such a good job modernising the Volvo brand, appear to have thought wrong. And I count myself among them. Projected sales for this year have been not so much cut as chopped into tiny little pieces, down from 55,000 units to just 12,000 – and that, mind, before the EU announced it was slapping a near 20% tariff on every Chinese-built Lotus sold within its borders.

And tariffs both in Europe and the even more swingeing ones imposed by the US are doubtless behind much of the problem. But it is also fair to wonder whether a sales strategy based on selling Chinese-built electric SUVs sharing nothing but a badge with anything one might traditionally think of as being a Lotus may have something to do with it. There is no question that many at Lotus looked at how Geely had curated the Volvo brand and expected the same thoughtful approach would be applied, trusting those who know the brand best to get on with the job. This has not happened and the result, in conjunction with the tariffs and a broadly more EV-sceptic attitude now prevailing in the market, has brought us to this point. What next?

I don’t have the Chinese down as quitters, but the void between where Lotus is now and where it had hoped to be must be giving Geely some pause for reflection, especially as I am told that the only Lotus anywhere near target is the Norfolk-built, petrol, mid-engined, two-seat Emira. A Lotus, in other words.

Next month I will review in depth the new Renault 5, a car which to me is an example of retro-design at its very best. We know how powerful a tool this can be: in 2007 Fiat struck gold with its reinterpretation of Dante Giacosa’s iconic 500 and despite the fact the car was uncomfortable and genuinely poor to drive, it sold in such vast quantities that the entire Fiat range was re-orientated around it and the design language it espoused. And BMW’s Mini has been exploiting the image of the original to great effect for 25 years now.

But so too can it also go horribly wrong. Remember the Jaguar S-type of 1999 or 2003 XJ? Or VW’s attempt to resurrect the Beetle? So why does retro work in some cases and fall on its face in others? There’s no simple answer and each case needs to be judged on merit. The 500 worked because it was a gorgeous piece of design, selling to people for whom that was a prime motivator. The Mini for partly the same reason, in addition to which it was a damn good car. Sadly the same could not be said for the S-type or Beetle.

The S-type bombed because it looked like a poor pastiche of the original and no-one liked the fact it had Ford underpinnings, the XJ because it looked like the kind of car driven by old men in hats. And the Beetle was just an old Golf in not very convincing fancy dress. But the Renault? It looks right, it’s priced right and, as we shall see next month, it’s good enough to drive. I think it’ll fly.

A former editor of Motor Sport, Andrew splits his time between testing the latest road cars and racing (mostly) historic machinery
Follow Andrew on Twitter @Andrew_Frankel