McLaren unveils £750,000 Senna hypercar

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Following months of teaser images and rumours, McLaren has finally unveiled its radical racing-inspired Senna hypercar.

Named after Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian racing driver who won three F1 world titles for McLaren in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the hypercar is handmade by the company’s Special Operations (MSO) team. It’s completely road-legal.

The Senna is powered by the same 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged engine as McLaren’s 720S supercar, says Auto Express, but the power output has been upped from 710bhp to 789bhp.

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Power is sent to the rear axle through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, the magazine says, and this helps the hypercar go from 0-62mph in “less than three seconds”. The car is expected to have a top speed of “at least 200mph”.

While the Senna is McLaren’s most powerful road car to date, Autocar says it’s not designed to be a successor to the company’s million-pound P1 hypercar from 2013.

Instead the Senna is aimed at buyers looking to turn up at a track day and set the fastest lap time. “Day-to-day practicality also goes onto the back burner”, says the magazine.

Only 500 examples are expected to reach production, each boasting a price tag of £750,000 – over three times the cost of the 720S.

According to Auto Express, some of the car’s profits will go towards the Senna Foundation which helps create educational and work opportunities for young Brazilians.

McLaren releases teaser of its ‘most extreme’ hypercar yet

19 October

McLaren has released a teaser image of its new hypercar, which it says is the “most extreme” road car it has ever made.

According to the British carmaker, the yet-to-be-named vehicle will be “track-concentrated” and appear before the three-seater “hyper-GT”. Codenamed BP23, it’s due to make its public debut next year.

The company has only released a single teaser image, but it’s clear that the hypercar will sport a different look to other models in the range.

The majority of McLaren’s vehicles feature a centrally-mounted single or dual-pipe exhaust at the rear, but the new car has three tailpipes that exit at what appears to be the base of the engine cover.

As for the design itself, the carmaker says the hypercar looks “brutal” and is the “purest expression yet of the company’s ‘form follows function’ philosophy.”

According to Evo, the vehicle is powered by the same 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine that appears in McLaren’s most recent supercar, the 720S. But the magazine says it’s expected to have more power than the 710bhp available in the 720S.

It could also be given the same carbon fibre MonoCell II chassis that underpins the 720S and cheaper 570S, says the magazine. This helps lower weight without compromising the stiffness of the car.

Autocar says the hypercar will come with motorsport-inspired seats and “little in the way of passenger comforts.”

Only 500 examples are set to reach production, the magazine says, and all of them have already been allocated for a price of “around £840,000”.