2020 Mclaren 600lt Spider on 2040-cars

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VW CEO Winterkorn happy with rebounding Seat, Skoda

Martin Winterkorn is a happy man: Volkswagen is putting up big numbers in North America, its latest field of dreams, Audi, is breaking records every month, there are exciting cars in the pipeline - from Bugatti down to the XL1, Porsche's digestion continues, and now Skoda and especially Seat are turning in no-questions performance.
It seems Skoda has been on the ups for years, making the most of keen pricing and modern redesigns of the chassis and tech it gets handed down from big brothers VW and Audi. Winterkorn predicts the Czech brand will just about double its 2010 sales by 2018, going from 762,000 to 1.5 million.
Seat, on the other hand, wasn't just on the hotseat a year-and-a-half ago, phrases like "uncertain future" - code for "possible demise" - were rumbling in the background. A new CEO was brought in, new money and new models were thrown against the wall, and the efforts have stuck. The Spanish brand has hit three strong chords with Winterkorn, with increased sales, strong performance in China and anticipated models due. If this keeps up there won't be much left for him to do but, a la Alexander the Great, break down and cry with no worlds left to conquer.

McLaren rolls out new 650S en route to Geneva

There are a lot of good things to be said about the McLaren MP4-12C. It is, after all, one of the most thoroughly capable supercars on the market, and it's served as a fitting launch pad for the new McLaren Automotive operation. What the 12C has never had, however, is an engaging name or a distinctive design. But the latter appears to be something Woking is out to fix with the new 650S. Based on the 12C, the 650S incorporates a number of key improvements over its progenitor – some of which you can see and some of which you can't. The new front end takes its cues from the P1, with a better integrated splitter and LED headlamps, while the rear bumper takes its inspiration from the company's 12C GT3 racing model. The side intakes are new, and the rear wing has been optimized to help deliver 24-percent more downforce at speed. Five-spoke alloys (of curiously unspecified diameter) are wrapped in special Pirelli P Zero Corsa MC1 rubber. As expected, underneath the revised sheetmetal sits a retuned version of McLaren's ubiquitous 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 now producing (as the name suggests) 650 metric horsepower (641 hp by our standards). The ProActive Chassis Control system has also been recalibrated and allows the driver to adjust suspension settings independent of engine response. McLaren has not released performance figures for the 650S, but you can expect the increased power and improved aero to give shave a tenth or two off the 0-60 time – enough to drop it below the 3-second mark. The updated cabin is fitted with all the bells and whistles – from satellite radio and navigation to smartphone integration – and buyers will be able to opt for fixed carbon racing buckets, electric steering column adjustment, rear camera and more. Most crucially, the 650S will launch at next month's Geneva Motor Show in both coupe and hardtop convertible versions right from the get-go, ostensibly making this an apt replacement for the entire MP4-12C line. However, as you can see from the press release below, McLaren insists that it will continue offering the 12C alongside the 650S, at least for the time being. Assuming the premium for the upgraded model isn't too ludicrous, we can't imagine many buyers going for the older model though.

How McLaren will double its output this year

McLaren Automotive is aiming to almost double its output this year, to 3,000 cars, and hit 4,000 cars per year by 2017. That's over 50 percent of Ferrari's annual production, yet the current McLaren Automotive is only six years old, based about 40 miles southwest of London in Woking. In pursuance of its lofty plans, McLaren recently announced a massive expansion its operations and is hiring another 250 assembly staff for a second shift, which will bring its total headcount to 1,750. Is it chutzpah, or rank stupidity? McLaren made just 1,654 cars last year, including the last of the 570-strong run of P1 supercars, which had an average transaction price of $1.35 million each, and all 40 or so track-only P1 GTRs, which sold for over $288 million. January saw the last P1 GTRs running down the track at Woking. Is it chutzpah, or rank stupidity? And while these cars cannot have been cheap to design and build, it's not hard to see how profitable they will have been. Given that much of the research and development (R&D) will have been amortized in the years up to the 2013 launch of the P1, the profit level has soared in subsequent years. In 2014, its second year of profit and under the leadership of chief executive Mike Flewitt, McLaren Automotive generated a profit before tax of $21.7 million, compared to $6.53 million in 2013. Turnover grew from $413.6 million in 2013 to $688.9 million in 2014. To be fair, the company is investing almost 20 percent of that turnover in R&D ($132.9 million in 2014, $97 million in 2013) and it says that level of spend as a proportion of turnover will continue, with last year's R&D cost estimated at $173.7 million. View 22 Photos In its defense, McLaren says that as a late comer it is still growing in China, which Flewitt has said could well be McLaren's second largest market in 2016 after the US and ahead of the UK and Germany. He also says that the company's growth plans are based on actual orders rather than theoretical expectations, and that since it is (and has been) profitable at 1,500 cars per year, there is some protection against a downturn. But the cars it has to sell this year are a far cry from the exotic and phantasmagorical P1 or the P1 GTR, which were only sold to existing P1 owners. The Sports Series, while being based on shared carbon-fiber tub and the same Ricardo-built 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 engine and seven-speed twin-clutch transmission, is a much cheaper car.