McLaren working on three new models

Having recently parted company from Mercedes-Benz, hired a new design director and started work on a successor to the vaunted F1, the team at McLaren is busy as ever. Now word has emerged that the men and women at Woking are working on not one, but three new models, one of which will be a £60,000 ($96,000) sports car.

Ranked in a sort of hierarchy, with the P11 supercar at the top, the three new McLarens are being readied to take the super-performance automotive world by storm. A massively expanded production capacity will also be developed to better compete with rivals like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, reports CAR.

The headliner for the new trio, however, isn't the halo car - it's the people's McLaren, if such a thing can be said of a nearly $100,000 car. Targeting the Porsche 911 as its performance competition, the car will almost certainly have to rely on more traditional construction methods that those employed on the groundbreaking F1 supercar or even the SLR 722 co-built with Mercedes. Steel and aluminum will be the main course, with perhaps a garnish of carbon fiber or exotic metals. Engine choices could run from a Mercedes-sourced unit to an entirely in-house mill, but cost and convenience will probably push in the direction of the former.

The P11 has recently been detailed by other sources, revealing a car to rival the world's top supercars thanks to superlight construction, a 600hp (400kW) 6.2L AMG-sourced V8, and McLaren's legendary engineering prowess.

What's lacking in detail, however, is the middle car of McLaren's posited future lineup. It will, of course, slot between the barnstorming P11 and the more affordable 911-challenger, but that still leaves a lot of room. The kind of room McLaren's new head designer Frank Stephenson can use to good advantage. With such terrific vehicles as the Mini Cooper, Alfa Romeo Mi.To, Ferrari F430 and 612 Scaglietti and the Fiat 500 to his credit, this middle-car could be the most interesting yet.