McLaren & Mercedes road divisions split
8th July 2008, 1:00 by Keith Collantine 16 Comments »
As well as producing Formula 1 cars together since 1995 McLaren and Mercedes have also been producing road cars. But that joint venture is coming to an end.
Together the two produced the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, plus a convertible version (above) and a hard-tuned special edition dubbed 722 (taking its name from Stirling Moss’s car number in the 1955 Mille Miglia, which he won).
The split is not expected to have an effect on their co-operation in F1. However last year there were rumours Mercedes’ racing engine division HWA was looking into setting up an F1 team.
HWA along with Mercedes tuners AMG will develop the successor to the SLR McLaren, the SLC.
McLaren is also working on a road car of its own. The car dubbed P11 in-house is expected to be a direct rival to Ferrari’s 430 and will arrive in 2010.
McLaren is also rumoured to be working on a successor to the famous McLaren F1 road car, which was the world’s fastest production car on its launch in 1994. That car is codenamed P12 and is expected in 2012.
f1freak said on 8th July 2008, 8:28
it would be quite interesting to see mercedes fighting against maclaren and bmw in F1…i think..
hope they come to F1 soon..
Oliver said on 8th July 2008, 8:38
What engines will Mclaren use if that were to happen?
Rushi said on 15th November 2009, 16:49
i bet if mclaren do split then they would use engine from BMW.
Johnny said on 8th July 2008, 10:19
Ferrari
Sush said on 8th July 2008, 10:35
“What engines will Mclaren use if that were to happen?”
wild guess here, but prodrive are good at tuning up engines, hehe.
Sush said on 8th July 2008, 10:45
if Mclaren get that desperate they can get themselves a nice little japanese engine on the 30th July
http://www.saf1-auction.com/
on a serious note, I thought Merc wanted to buy out Mclaren at one stage.
f1freak said on 8th July 2008, 10:55
why dont they put some of their mony on start developing their own engines…i know it takes a gigantic effort to develop f1 engies from the scratch but for the long run it will suit them i think…
and they wouldnt have to worry abt engine manufacturers threatning to back out…
hmmmmm probably they would have definately thought abt that cuz they know better…
Sush said on 8th July 2008, 11:29
the problem with that F1freak is that Mclaren are a constructor, much like williams and Force India and Red Bull Racing.
Manufacturers have the engines, because they have the resources.
If I was Martin Whitmarsh i’d start begging Porsche, since they have a superb road going V10, and they wanna buy Audi.
f1freak said on 8th July 2008, 11:45
aha good point sush…
Oliver said on 8th July 2008, 12:28
Johnny I was also thinking along that line.:)
Oliver said on 8th July 2008, 12:30
The quickest way for way for Mclaren to go bust, is to start designing and building engines.
Sush said on 8th July 2008, 12:41
“The quickest way for way for Mclaren to go bust, is to start designing and building engines.”….
… based on photocopied documents they just might have laying around somewhere.
f1freak said on 8th July 2008, 14:25
yeah they can use those documents which they stole from ferrari…
DG said on 8th July 2008, 15:50
Has anybody checked the McLaren Cars website? Surely this is just saying that as a McLaren project, the SLR is finished, but will carry on under Mercedes/AMG ownership, which is strange anyway considering it was only supposed to be a low volume production – its not as if anybody races them yet!
McLaren will have their hands full with the P11 and P12, which will be with Merc/AMG engines I’m sure – this is purely a rearrangement, not a split!
By the way, have you seen that BMW are bringing back the M1 to compete against the SLR?
And thinking about it, wouldn’t an HWA engine count as a Mercedes ‘Customer’ engine in the F1 terminology?
Internet said on 8th July 2008, 18:35
Most likely McLaren will go with Honda. They have had a good partnership in the past. Anyone know why McLaren left them?
donwatters said on 8th July 2008, 20:20
If Mercedes really wants to own its own team it will buy the rest of McLaren it doesn’t already own. It makes no sense from either a monetary or competitive standpoint to start something from scratch.