How McLaren's car design nurtures nature

I've always been inspired by nature. As a kid, if I was sat by a stream or in the woods, I'd be examining flowers or sketching birds. I love figure-sketching, too. The curved sections of the body fascinate me – the fact they can be soft, but also tense up. If you can generate that in metalwork, you can create an athletic, sexy car and it can be both a feminine and masculine machine at the same time.

McLaren has the same philosophy – our creations draw on nature and are beautiful yet functional. Many car designers reference a shark-nosed design, for example, but we really have based the GT on a shark. And when you move around to the rear, suddenly it looks like a manta ray. The S has flying buttresses, whereas the GT is a calmer-looking design, simpler and more elegant. It still has some very techy elements, though, from the aero blades at the front, which steer air into the radiators, to the exposed technical detailing at the rear. So, again, we're back to nature: the shark with its fluid form and its functional gills and fins. It's these details that make you go: "This is a modern car – not just a repeat of the past."

On my desk, I keep a model of a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. It's an amazing plane and, actually, if you look at the 570GT, it does something similar – it looks beautiful, but you know it's genuinely completely functional. To me, that's the ultimate expression of a design being authentic. I could walk around it and, hand on heart, say: "That has this function and this has that function." I don't think much car design does that.

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McLaren cars are always very streamlined. In creating the 570GT, we managed to save weight, which requires an expensive process to bring the components together. Essentially, we offer a lightweight premium, which isn't luxury in a traditional sense, because we're using carbon fibre, titanium and magnesium – it's more of a racing-car approach.

We're using carbon fibre shells for our seats, for example, which are clearly inspired by the racetrack. These days, you can model and sculpt something digitally, send it off to be 3D-printed and get it back in 48 hours. In the same way, there's a resurgence in craftsmanship and bespoke tailoring, we can measure you and say: "This is the perfect driving position for you and this is where your controls need to be." Using cutting-edge technology, we can reprint areas of the dashboard and position all the switches in exactly the right place and when a new owner takes over the car, we can just take it out and do it all over again. If you can crush down the material you're printing and reuse it rather than recycle it, the whole process is a satisfyingly rounded model, with no excess.

Ultimately, the 570GT is all about enjoying the journey. You can feel as if you're relaxing, just wafting along, but when you reach a good bit of road, suddenly it comes alive. When the sun's out and there's blue sky, you can really take advantage of the glass roof and even though it's a very compact cabin by McLaren standards, it feels open and airy. This car isn't just providing you with a journey in luxury and comfort, it's also allowing you to switch its character – you're getting the best of both worlds. That's why, I hope, it'll be a great success.

ROBERT MELVILLE is one of the car industry's leading figures. A graduate of the Royal College of Art's Vehicle Design programme, with a decade of prior experience in the luxury automotive sector, he joined McLaren in 2009; cars.mclaren.com