McLaren Confirms Its Done With The Sports Series

McLaren has just lifted the covers off of its all-newArtura. The powerful plug-in hybrid now becomes the brand's first series-production High-Performance Hybrid supercar. For customers and enthusiasts used to McLaren's naming convention - Sports Series, Ultimate Series, and Super Series - and the use of alpha-numeric names, it can be a bit of a maze trying to figure out where the new Artura fits in.

After all, we've all seen the outcry from Audi fans about that brand'sunusual new naming scheme. We asked Roger Ormisher, Vice President Communications and PR of McLaren in The Americas, to clear up some of the confusion.

首先,我们质疑Artura佤邦s a sign that McLaren would move away from alpha-numeric names, especially considering the many numbered models over the years - at the rate things were going, a McLaren 1000 seemed on the cards at some point. To this, Ormisher said: "As you know, the GT and all of our Ultimate Series cars have had 'names' so Artura is just following that cadence. We will continue with the 720 Series and further decisions on naming have yet to be made."

This indicates that we won't see any dramatic, sweeping changes to McLaren's naming structure. Rather, it'll continue to be a mix of the older alpha-numeric structure along with models like the GT, Senna, and Artura.

Next, we asked for confirmation of whether the Artura sits in an all-new segment or if it will directly replace the Sports Series line. Along with this, there has been some confusion about whether the High-Performance Hybrid (HPH) is a new grouping alongside the existing Sports, Super, and Ultimate Series.

"It is not a direct replacement for the Sports Series which is being discontinued with the final model being thelimited series 620R," said Ormisher of the HPH. "The Artura is truly a 'supercar' - but in a different market position to the 720 with its focus on more power and active aerodynamics (and, of course, a Spider variant). So, the new classifications will be GT, Supercars, and Ultimate Series going forward."

The Super Series will continue with models like therecord-breaking 765LT.

Finally, when asked whether the new MCLA (McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture) will be limited to hybrid or extend to conventionally-powered models as well, he said: "The new MCLA architecture is designed to specifically accommodate High-Performance Hybrid powertrains. The 720 will continue to use [the]Monocage II Platform."

There you have it. In summary, McLaren won't move away from its alpha-numeric names completely - at least not yet. The Sports Series will be discontinued imminently, but the new HPH won't replace it. That being said, we expect more changes to McLaren's lineup as the brand continues to embrace electrification.