The world is still a year away from the highly anticipated debut of the McLaren MP4-12C supercar.
And yet the company already boasts 1,600 customer registrations on its Web site indicating expressions of interest to purchase,” even before it officially opens its order book.
Customer service technicians will soon make telephone calls to confirm intentions to buy one of the 1,000 vehicles set to be produced in the first year. It’s all part of a sophisticated plan to quadruple
annual output and establish a car company alongside the already legendary
McClaren racing operation.
Much of that action will flow out of the new McLaren Production Center when it opens in six months. Designed by Norman Foster, the building will stand next to the existing technical center on the
company’s campus in Woking, England.
In the field, McLaren is fashioning its showrooms around what the company’s Middle East regional director, Ian Gorsuch, describes as a “sanity, not vanity” approach. For instance, computer touch
screens designed by Microsoft will walk would-be customers through an informative
introduction to the brand.
McLaren’s overall strategy – first detailed in the pages of this magazine – is to develop a full range of high performance sports cars by the middle of this decade.
That would mean a production output of some 4,000 automobiles a year.
All in all, it’s a bold corporate expansion plan that hinges on McLaren’s engineering know-how and passion for science. Yet there’s another aspect to the overall plan that comes from a less scientific
source; McLaren’s customer service technicians are screening potential customers using good old-fashioned gut istinct. Gorsuch offers an example. “If someone’s responded to us online and he
says he already owns 20 Ferraris, chances are it’s a schoolboy,” he says.
It’s a simple marketing screen, but when you’re selling something like the MP4-12C, it’s also a necessity.

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