Luxury Sports Car Maker McLaren Builds 10,000th Unit

McLaren Automotive builds its 10,000^th car – a McLaren 570S – at its production center in Woking, U.K., a little more than five years after the first car was completed.

CEO Mike Flewitt calls it a significant milestone in the short history of the luxury sports car manufacturer.

“The fact that it took us 42 months to build our 5,000th car and just 22 months to build the next 5,000 speaks volumes about the pace of development of the company,” Flewitt says in a statement.

He credits the growth to the introduction of the Sports Series family of cars.

Early this year, a second shift was introduced at the production center outside London to cater to increased sales of the Sports Series comprising the 540C, 570S and 570GT. This doubled production capacity to 20 cars a day.

McLaren was founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren. After a brief collaboration with Mercedes-Benz, McLaren Automotive was relaunched as a stand-alone manufacturer in 2010.

This year is the automaker’s third year of profitability since the relaunch and McLaren is on target to almost double its sales from 1,654 units in 2015 to more than 3,000 this year. McLaren says more than 90% will be exported.

Earlier this year, McLaren introduced a new business plan, Track22, which sees the automaker spending £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in R&D designed to deliver 15 all-new cars or derivatives by the end of 2022, at least half of which will employ hybrid technology.

The 10,000^th car will be retained by the company in its Heritage Collection.