Europe’s exotic automakers have been falling one after another into the SUV market. Lamborghini, Maserati, Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls-Royce… they’re all launching their first crossovers. Not McLaren, though. That company exclusively produces mid-engined, two door supercars, and has said repeatedly that it won’t do the sport-ute thing. But what if it didn’t have to choose between the two?
That’s the implausible scenario envisioned here by Rain Prisk. The rendering artist who gave us (among other fantasies) the off-road-converted Porsche 918 Spyder has this time applied his talents to the McLaren P1 – accompanied by the promising caption: “I think we all know what car is going to be next.”
The idea is simple enough: take one hybrid hypercar, jack up the suspension, add big knobby tires on bead-lock wheels, and fit some other concessions to utility like a luggage rack (affixed at the rear where the DRS wing would be) and a winch instead of a diffuser.
The result is, well… it’s a different take on Woking’s finest, to be sure. And it would almost break the heart to see a million-dollar exotic splattered with mud and think of how the harsh environment would mistreat it so – that is, if it weren’t quite so giddily awesome.
Of course, McLaren would never do such a thing, and we doubt any private owner would be so foolish. Plus the P1’s hybrid powertrain doesn’t incorporate through-the-road all-wheel drive (like the Porsche’s does), as if that were the main impediment. And in any event, it ended production months ago already.
Still, if the British outfit that’s already conquered just about every form of track-bound motorsport ever wanted to try its hand at the Dakar, or squeeze a few extra special orders out of the Persian Gulf market, we hope the resulting vehicle would look something like this.
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