Produced in a quantity of only 106 units, to date, McLaren’s first hypercar line using hybrid drive system, the Speedtail, is about to end its production line. Besides commercial cars, McLaren is also commercializing the prototypes they used during the car’s development. One of them, the car number MVY02, was recently completed and ready to return to its owner in Beverly Hills, USA. This is also the last Speedtail that McLaren delivers to customers.
MVY02 prototype while still in the testing phase
Named “Albert”, this McLaren Speedtail was specially personalized through the McLaren Beverly Hills dealership. The name “Albert” is taken from Albert Drive, a workshop at the McLaren Technology Center, where the company used to develop the legendary F1. Previously, MVY02 was used by McLaren to develop the seating position, seating arrangement, visibility as well as cameras around the Speedtail. Previously, it carried the front end of the 720S and it was also the first Speedtail to roll on public streets.
It’s easy to see that the exterior of the Speedtail “Albert” has a paint color inspired by its previous camouflage outfit with dark gray and silver-white headlights. Although it looks simple, in reality, it took McLaren and the MSO personalization department up to 12 weeks to complete. The two main colors of the car are Magnesium Silver, inspired by the paint color of the first F1 car introduced to the public. The second color is Ueno Gray, inspired by the F1 GTR that won the 24h of Le Mans in 1995.
The body of this prototype is made of full carbon fiber with a 1K gloss. Because of the complexity of the gradient paint, McLaren had to test whether it was feasible to implement through its visualization team. In total, the Speedtail “Albert” took the MSO team 12 weeks to complete the paint job. The first two weeks are spent marking and molding, six weeks painting and four weeks drying and reassembling.
The exterior decorative stripes were completed by two separate specialists. They are completed after the car is reassembled to ensure balance and best fit with the car’s exterior. In total, approximately 2 km of colored tape was used to create the lines before they were painted directly.
“The name “Albert” has a special association with MSO, as we were the custodians of the McLaren F1 during the years it was developed at the Albert Drive facility in the early ’90s,” said the department’s managing director. MSO department, Ansar Ali shared about the name “Albert” of the car. “The experience with Speedtail is an exciting journey for our customers, from visualizing their vision to realizing that inspiration and sharing their joy when the product is finished. “Albert” puts an end to this line and I am very happy because it is truly special.”
McLaren Speedtail uses a hybrid drive system with a twin-turbo V8 engine as the center and supplemented by an electric motor, creating a maximum capacity of 1,036 horsepower and maximum torque of 1,150 Nm. With this power, McLaren Speedtail can accelerate to 300 km/h in just 12.8 seconds and can reach a maximum speed of up to 403 km/h, becoming McLaren’s fastest car at the time it was released. eye.
The McLaren Speedtail’s electric motor uses technology from Formula E racing cars, generating 308 horsepower (230 kW), allowing the car to have the highest performance configuration (including radiator and systems). integrated) when compared to all electric motors available in commercial vehicles at this time. This system is capable of generating 8.3 kW/kg of energy (power/mass of the drive system), twice as efficient as the door drive systems of currently sold supercars.
McLaren only produced a total of 106 Speedtails, the same number as the McLaren F1 and the selling price of each unit started at 2.25 million USD.
