JUNE 9, 2004

McLaren to build a cheaper sports car?

DaimlerChrysler is reported to be considering developing and building a second vehicle in collaboration with McLaren and it is expected that this would be a more affordable alternative to the recently-launched Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR. It would still be more expensive than the top of the range Mercedes-Benz cars but would cost less than the previous supercars that McLaren has produced.

Mercedes-Benz says it wants to create a new brand and there is talk of a production run of 15,000 cars rather than the 3500 SLRs which are planned for.

McLaren thus continues on its way to becoming the English version of Ferrari although a little bit more success on the race track would be a useful boost at the moment. Having said that the men down at Woking do not like losing and are working flat out to fix the current problems.