McLaren (officially McLaren Automotive Limited) is a British automotive manufacturer that appears in Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition. The company is based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England and mainly produces sports cars built in-house at designated production facilities. Originally, the automotive company was founded as McLaren Cars back in 1985 and released the McLaren F1 in 1992. The entire brand of McLaren was founded in 1963 as a racing team by Bruce McLaren; the team mainly competed in the Formula One world championship. In July 2017, McLaren Automotive became a fully-owned subsidiary owned by the McLaren group.[1]
History[]
McLaren's true origin can be traced back to 1963, where their Formula One team was founded by New Zealand racer, Bruce McLaren as Bruce McLaren Motor Racing. A year after being formed, McLaren built their true race car which was the M1. There were 24 customer M1 cars that were produced by British manufacturer Elva, since McLaren was limited in staff. [2] The M1's successor, the M1B, enabled McLaren to participate in the Can-Am championship and dominate with 43 victories, 3 times more than their rival Porsche. In 1966, McLaren debuted their first Formula One car at the Monaco Grand Prix. After his time and victories in Formula 3, Bruce McLaren began designing and testing a prototype M6GT-registered OBH 500H. This was a lightweight sports car with an estimated 165MPH top speed and 8 second 0-100MPH time. However, Bruce died in a car accident in 1970 before his prototype could be completed.
In 1980, McLaren merged with the Project 4 Racing Team, founded by Ron Dennis. As a result, designer John Barnard joined the team again and expressed his interest in using carbon fiber. Carbon fiber was already used in aerospace but had never been applied to a race car body before. McLaren pioneered using carbon fiber in motor racing with their new car the MP4/1, which brought better rigidity and driver safety to Formula 1. In August 1988, Ron Dennis (who became McLaren's team principal) and designer Gordon Murray began development of a new car and by 1992, the McLaren F1 was launched with only 106 units made.
In the 2000s, McLaren had a brief collaboration with Mercedes-Benz to create the SLR McLaren which sold between 2003 and 2010. Afterwards, McLaren Automotive was relaunched in 2010 as a standalone manufacturer, a spin-off of their racing team. This replaced McLaren Cars which was registered as a "dormant company" from 1994 onwards, until they decided to properly make production road cars. McLaren launched the 12C in 2011, the 12C Spyder in 2012, the P1 from 2013-2015 (limited run) and then created a business plan to launch a new car or model each year. They launched the 650S as Coupé and Spyder models in 2014 and then their new Sports Series range in 2015, consisting of the McLaren 570S and 540C.
In September 2016, McLaren created the P1TM (based off the P1) as a car for children that had a top speed of 3MPH. [3] In the same month they also announced development of a powerful battery for Formula E. In October 2016, McLaren announced the "Pure McLaren Arctic Experience" where a driver was trained to drive a 570S in the arctic circle. In July 2017, McLaren was brought back into the McLaren Group after owner/CEO Ron Dennis sold his shares in both McLaren Automotive and McLaren Group.
As of 2023, McLaren's motorsport participation includes:
- Extreme E - NEOM McLaren Extreme E (drivers: Tanner Foust, Emma Gilmour)
- Formula 1 - McLaren Formula 1 Team (drivers: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri)
- Formula E - NEOM McLaren Formula E Team (drivers: Jake Hughes, Sam Bird)
- IndyCar - Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team (drivers: Pato O'Ward, David Malukas, Alexander Rossi)[4]
Vehicles[]
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition[]
Joint-Venture Cars[]
Logo History[]
The McLaren logo has gone through 9 different designs throughout its history; from the fourth logo onwards, the design has gone through minimal to moderate changes. The iconic McLaren Speedmark has several versions of its meaning. One of them references the original Speedy Kiwi emblem (the 1967 logo). The 1981 version is a modernized and softened chevron from the McLaren F1 team used when sponsored by Marlboro.
McLaren themselves say the "swoosh" represents the swirling vortices that appear on the top of the car's side pods. The bold stylized lettering is set in a custom sans-serif typeface with smooth shapes of the heavy title case characters. The closest fonts to the one used in the logo are Snasm Heavy and Strelka Ultra, with some contours modified. The color palette for McLaren, until 2012, was black and red. Later on, the red was removed and black was the primary color. [5]
References[]
- ↑ McLaren Automotive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Automotive
- ↑ Elva https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Elva
- ↑ McLaren P1TM https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13071214/mclaren-first-electric-car-p1tm-kids
- ↑ McLaren in motorsporthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren
- ↑ McLaren Logo https://1000logos.net/pagani-logo/
Related Content[]
| Manufacturers in Midnight Club | ||
| Parent Companies | General Motors · Stellantis | |
| American | Buick · Cadillac · Chevrolet · Chrysler · Dodge · Ford · GMC · Hummer · Hotmatch (Matt Hotch Designs) · Pontiac · Saleen · Scion · West Coast Choppers | |
| European | Aston Martin · Aprilia · Audi · BMW · Ducati · Gemballa · Lamborghini · Land Rover · Lotus · McLaren · Mercedes-Benz · Pagani · Volkswagen | |
| Japanese | Datsun · Honda · Infiniti · Lexus · Kawasaki · Mazda · Mitsubishi · Nissan · Toyota | |