We’ve all heard of rumours about a new ‘Ultimate Series’ McLaren car that’s said to be a homage to the legendary McLaren F1. A new three-seater hypercar following on from where the P1 left off. McLaren have even said this new “hyper-GT” will be their fastest road going car yet.

Fastest road going car, now that’s quite a claim. For those of us outside the McLaren circle of trust, little was known about this car. Hell, it doesn’t even have an actual name. We’re still referring to it by its codename. But yesterday McLaren released an official teaser sketch to get the hype machine worked up.

It’s not often a sketch can cause quite a stir but when it comes to a new Ultimate Series car it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. From the rear three quarter sketch we can tell it’s going to be very mid-engined, very aerodynamic, and very dramatic.

In keeping with their ‘revolution than evolution’ ethos, the ‘BP23’ isn’t a mere update on the P1 or F1. It’s looking like it’ll be a whole new original design, which is quite refreshing in this day and age. Accompanying this sketch was a press release that gave us some more information on this car.

Firstly, McLaren have described this as a “luxurious three-seat car”, taking clear inspiration from the three-seat layout of the F1, hence the ‘Hyper-GT’ tag. But just because it’s going to be a “luxurious” hypercar doesn’t mean it won’t be fast. In fact McLaren are saying it’ll be their “most power and most aerodynamic road going car ever”. If that’s not enough to get you excited I don’t know what will.

Obviously, they haven’t released any numbers but expect it to have their new 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 as seen in the 720S but with aided by some more advanced and powerful electric motors. McLaren have been quite clever with their choice of words, being a ‘Hyper-GT’ don’t expect this to be a track monster.

Only 106 of these will be made, the same as the original McLaren F1. If you want one you’re too late, they’re all sold out. The ‘BP23’ codename comes from this being Mclaren Special Operations ‘ (MSO) second Bespoke project and it having three seats.

The story goes this was originally a one-off project for a customer but then it developed from there. All 106 lucky customers will work with MSO to personalize their cars with the first batch expected to be delivered in 2019.

It’ll arrive in time to compliment an ever expanding McLaren range as part of their ‘Track 22’ plan which is part of a £1 billion investment to produce 15 new cars, beginning with the 720S. With this ‘BP23’ project, the upcoming Mercedes-AMG hypercar, and the Aston Martin Valkyrie, these are going to be some exciting couple of years.

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Ken Saito
Words cannot begin to describe how much I love cars but it's worth a try. Grew up obsessed with them and want to pursue a career writing about them. Anything from small city cars to the most exotic of supercars will catch my attention.

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