Author: Jack Stewart / Source: WIRED
If you want to properly understand the million-dollar McLaren Senna supercar, you’ve got to make the pilgrimage to Woking, just southeast of London. There, you’ll find McLaren’s UK Technology Center headquarters. What looks like a science fiction movie prop dropped in the English countryside is in fact home to the factory hand-building road cars, and McLaren’s Formula 1 team.
The kidney shaped structure wraps floor to ceiling glass around a pool of tranquil water, which is used for cooling the mechanics when a huge on-site wind tunnel is running.It is, that is to say, exactly the sort of place that would produce a car like the Senna, which promises to be one of the world’s most radical road machines. The 4.0-liter V8 engine, sitting behind the two carbon fiber seats, produces 789 brake horsepower, a whole lot in a car that weighs just 2,461 pounds. It’s also the sort of place where your tour guide confirms that yes, that’s Fernando Alonso who just walked by. He’s there doing interviews before the F1 season kicks up, but you wonder if McLaren keeps him around to remind visitors that it’s been in the sport for 50 years.
Inside, a wave of a hand over a hidden sensor causes a section of wall to glide open, revealing new curved corridors. Another hidden, swooshing, door reveals the back of house, where a brand new McLaren Senna sits on a turntable.
“For us, it’s a real treat to be able to spend some quality time with a real vehicle, a production car,” says Mark Roberts, McLaren’s design manager, explaining that he’s happy to take time out of his day to show me around the car.
Normally, he sees a vehicle as a clay model in the studio, perfects it, then moves on to the next project. There’s not much time built in for looking back.With the Senna, the million-dollar base price buys you less not more. It’s stripped back, bereft of everything that adds weight. All that’s left is a passenger cell, shrink wrapped in carbon fiber, with an enormous wing on the back. “It’s like…
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