Then we take Milan: McLaren Opens First Dealership in Ferrari's Home Turf

McLaren’s expansion strategy is running like clockwork. After the flagship showroom in London’s Hyde Park, the British company opened two more retail shops in Germany, in Dusseldorf and Hamburg just before the local Formula 1 Grand Prix. Now, McLaren has landed in Italy.
On Thursday, McLaren opened its first showroom in the city of Milan at an event hosted by the company’s managing director Anthony Sheriff and featuring F1’s 2009 world champion, and current McLaren driver, Jenson Button as well as McLaren’s CEO, Martin Whitmarsh.
“The opening of McLaren Milan marks a significant point in the development of McLaren Automotive” said Sheriff. “My vision for this company is to design and build the most innovative, efficient and high performance sports cars in the world.”
The Milan showroom is the only one planned for Italy and just one of 35 worldwide dearlerships that will sell and provide customer care for McLaren’s supercar, the MP4-12C. At least for the time being, since the company is developing a new range of models to cover the entire supercar segment and challenge Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche.
Of course, McLaren’s CEO didn’t miss the opportunity to rival the local opposition in its home ground: “The MP4-12C is unlike other sports cars that buyers in the Italian market are familiar with.” Wonder whom he might be referring to…

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McLaren Announces New Special Operations Customizing Division [with Video]

If you are one of the few lucky people in this world to be able afford an MP4-12C, but you want the supercar to differ from the one parked in the garage of your obviously wealthy neighbor, the new Special Operations division of McLaren Automotive has a solution.

The new division, which was announced at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance show, aims to create bespoke versions in order to satisfy customer needs for differentiation.

The car on display had a satin matte “Volcano Orange” paint with a black roof, “diamond cut” finish alloy wheels with black inners, and plenty of carbon fibre applied on the sills, the steering wheel, the front wheel arches, the engine cover vents, the rear deck vent and the wiper covers. Now, that’ a lot of carbon…

If orange is not your style, perhaps you will find the chrome-coated MP4-12C painted in the same lightweight AkzoNobel Sikkens’ color used exclusively on McLaren’s Formula 1 cars more appealing.

Unfortunately, even customizing has its limits: this drag-minimizing paint will not be available on the Special Operations catalogue and will solely adorn Hamilton’s and Button’s cars.

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