P1

Make
McLaren
Segment
Coupe

Lamborghini just launched the Urus. Ferrari will unveil its first ever SUV in a few years. Porsche, well, need we say more? SUV popularity won't die down anytime soon as both premium and mainstream automakers are diverting funds, time and attention to a guaranteed money-making segment. But what about McLaren? In the past it's denied any chance it'll do an SUV and the same holds true today. Speaking to Automotive News, North America chief Tony Joseph stated, once again and hopefully for the last time, that an SUV is not happening.

"We have been a company in existence for a long time prior to automotive (its road car division-ED), and we're a profitable company, so there's really no need to go into SUVs. We want to concentrate just on two-seat sports cars, and be known as the iconic sports car company." Those future two-seat sports cars will include, as we already know, the BP23 and future hybrid and EVs. McLaren's already announced Track22 plan states that by 2022 at least 50 percent of its cars will feature hybrid technology. The P1 was the first McLaren to offer a gasoline-hybrid powertrain and it surely won't be the last. Sometime after 2022 is when the EV hypercar will arrive, though there'll be plenty of new product before then, just not an SUV.

Sounds good to us. In many ways, an SUV is sort of selling out. Then again, the Cayenne literally helped save Porsche almost two decades ago when the automaker realized it needed to expand beyond sports cars in order to survive in the long haul. But Porsche is more mainstream than McLaren and always will be. McLaren has no intention of being an outright Porsche fighter, though its Sports Series, consisting of the 570S, 570 Spider and 570 GT, are 911 Turbo fighters. Lotus, on the other hand, wants to transform itself into a genuine Porsche competitor. First clue: it'll launch an SUV of its own in 2020. As long as McLaren is profitable doing what it's doing, why fix something that's not broken.