McLaren has taken the wraps off its new Senna, which it bills as “the ultimate McLaren track-concentrated car for the road”.
The Woking-based brand says the latest member of its Ultimate Series – named after legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna – has been “legalised for road use, but not sanitised to suit it”. The new Senna will be hand-assembled in England, with production limited to 500 vehicles. Each example, the brand says, has already been sold.
The two-seater tips the scales at a claimed 1 198 kg (sans fluids) thanks to a carbon-fibre chassis and body panels fashioned from the same material. McLaren’s mid-mounted 4,0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 has been tuned to deliver 588 kW and 800 N.m, sending drive to the rear wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.
In terms of styling, the new McLaren Senna appears to doggedly stick to the form-follows-function approach, featuring what the British automaker calls a “new generation of ground-breaking” front and rear active aerodynamics.
McLaren says the rear clamshell was “born from the twin demands of aerodynamic and cooling performance”, with the gurney flaps ahead of stepped louvres directing air away from the rear deck and down the sides of the body.
The double-element carbon-fibre rear wing, which at its highest point sits 1 219 mm from the tarmac, is hydraulically actuated, constantly adjusting to optimise the levels of downforce and aerodynamic balance (it also functions as an airbrake under heavy braking).
Production will start in the third quarter of 2018.
