Bicester, Oxfordshire. Forseven has three units there already and a new design centre opening soon. Forseven also has offices in Leamington Spa, unsurprisingly given the volume of talent it has attracted from neighbour JLR.
All McLaren facilities at Woking, along with its composites factory in Yorkshire, will be retained for now, and the companies will be integrated together rather than run separately. Collins favours the Bicester location as a central hub between the Midlands and London/south-east, allowing It to attract a wider talent pool.
Further facilities are at Shalford, near Guildford, where the Gordon Murray Technologies operation is currently run.
Collins said the new company “would probably look to rationalise our footprint over time”, yet all facilities would be retained for now.
Collins would not confirm where the Forseven-derived McLarens would be built, only ruling out China as one option.
How many cars will McLaren make?
Collins declined to comment on volume projects and, regardless, “personally, I don’t like judging car companies by volume”.
“I’d much rather think about value, and where we can generate value with this brand and this portfolio of cars,” he added. “The volume will take care of itself after that and I’m not interested in pushing against a specific target. In the luxury world, you don’t really want to talk about how many things you sell, you want to talk about the value you create and experiences you deliver to your consumers.”
McLaren itself sold just over 2000 supercars last year, and based on the way the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini have bolstered their sales beyond 10,000 thanks to additional model lines, this could be a long-term figure Forseven could get to given the likely pricing and positioning of the new models. The 7000 sales Aston Martin is targeting per year would be a more likely number to pass in the medium term for McLaren.
What will happen to Forseven as we know it today?