McLaren's on fast track with sales plan

GENEVA — If McLaren Automotive's Track 25 business plan goes as expected, by 2024 the company will have launched 18 new models or derivatives since 2018.

But another number is tied to the $2.1 billion investment plan: 6,000.

That's how many vehicles the exotic automaker forecasts it will sell annually starting in 2024, and is also the capacity of its assembly plant in Woking, England.

That sales volume would be a 25 percent leap over McLaren's record 4,806 global deliveries in 2018.

The forecast hinges on a stream of new product.

The earliest fruits of the Track 25 plan have been convertibles — the 720S Spider and 600LT Spider. But McLaren unveiled plans this month at the Geneva auto show to bring a new grand tourer to market in the coming months.

Also ahead is , a three-seat hypercar with a 1,035-hp gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain and a price tag of around $2.3 million. Deliveries are to begin in January.

"The lifeblood of the market is product," Jolyon Nash, McLaren executive director of global sales and marketing, told Automotive News on the sidelines of the show. "I think the reason we've gotten where we are today is because we focused all of our investment on new product."

With four vehicles from Track 25 identified and 14 to go, McLaren's portfolio is primed to remain fresh. Gone are the days of having a vehicle on the market for eight to 10 years, Nash said. "You'd be caught with your pants down if you did that. Because for customers buying in this segment, it's a completely emotional purchase. It's not a need. It's a want."

Once the products have been launched, McLaren will be selling about 6,000 vehicles a year worldwide, according to the business plan. And that will be the limit of its capacity, Nash said.

McLaren hand-builds each vehicle at its partially underground factory that looks than a manufacturing plant. McLaren is unlikely to increase capacity for the life of Track 25, Nash said.

"Our current plan says no," he said of the potential for increased capacity. And that means that sales will hold firm at that level — a reality that the privately owned automaker accepts.

"We're an independent business," he said. "We don't have some big parent company. We don't answer to the stock exchange, so we don't have investor analysts chasing us once a quarter asking, 'Where's the growth? Where's the growth?'

"We're able to have a product plan that supports the brand and is true to its DNA. We're very comfortable with a business plan that generates healthy returns for our shareholders at 5,000 to 6,000 cars."

Customers will be fine with it, too, he said.

"For a luxury brand, where exclusivity is extremely important, that's kind of what our customers want," he said. "We've been through two big growth spurts. It's all driven by having the right product. We don't want to be doing much more than that."

Not included in McLaren's new-product assault is an SUV or crossover.

"Our view is that we need to be true to the brand and not become all things to everybody," Nash said. "For us, an SUV is not what we're about. It's the antithesis of lightweight, high-performance. Yes, you can make an SUV that handles extremely well, but it's still a bit of a compromise."

McLaren won't see global sales volume surge another 44 percent in 2019 as it did in 2018, Nash said. But growth is expected this year from the United States, its biggest market.

"We had a very good year there last year," he said of the U.S. "I think we'll have a better year this year."