McLaren has taken dozens of orders for its new P11 supercar, CAR has learned. A special department at the F1 team and road cars’ Woking headquarters has launched a register of interest where potential customers can sign up for the new 200mph slingshot from Surrey.

Codenamed P11, the new sports car is designed to extend McLaren’s racetrack expertise to a wider audience. While today’s SLR, jointly developed by Mercedes-Benz and widely considered a disappointment, costs an eye-watering £320,000, McLaren’s new baby will cost somewhere between £150-200k. A relative bargain then.

Forget the P11 project code; McLaren’s next supercar will carry a new, as yet unknown, name when it launches in 2010. CAR has spoken to engineers involved in the project and seen documents from the official McLaren Development Plan to compile the definitive dossier on McLaren’s new baby.

Like Lewis Hamilton’s company car, the P11 will use the latest materials. McLaren Automotive, Woking’s road car division, is advertising in the trade for dozens of new jobs working on the project, including engineers ‘with experience in carbonfibre and aluminium’.

There’s no word on a kerb weight yet, but you’d expect McLaren to undercut rivals cars such as the Ferrari 430 Scuderia and Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera. That means around 1200kg – and electrifying performance from the proposed Mercedes-sourced V8.

Merc owns 40 percent of McLaren, don’t forget, making a German lump the most likely powerplant. The firm’s AMG-fettled 6.2 is one contender to nestle amidships driving the rear wheels; with around 500bhp, it would provide the necessary firepower to make 0-60mph in less than four seconds a certainty.

This is a pure-bred two-seater and those who’ve seen the car in the clay reckon it’s deliciously small. They talk of a car that looks somewhere between the Audi TT and R8 supercar in dimensions. It’ll be exclusive, too – McLaren plans to build fewer than 5000 a year at its Woking HQ.

Company chairman and the man who pulls the strings, Ron Dennis, is keen to leverage the maximum connection between the P11 and his successful F1 cars. So carbon brakes are de rigeur, the alloy wheels are lightweight five-spokers, and the shape is distinctly honed in the wind tunnel. We’ve seen official documents outlining the design and can attest to the accuracy of our artist’s impressions – right down to the double-tick air vents scalloped into the flanks. There’s also a shark-gill cooling vent built into the rearmost side window.
Who needs to copy leaked blueprints from Ferrari when the McLaren road car looks this good?

When CAR rang posing as a customer, a McLaren official confirmed that our launch date of 2010 is accurate. So we’ll have to wait a while longer before we learn the full details of this most exciting sports car for a generation.

Rest assured, CAR Online will be the first to bring you the full story on the P11. Two years sounds a long time to wait, but we reckon it’ll be worth holding on so you can clamber into the Conran-designed interior.

Supercar speculator Tom Hartley Jnr reckons the P11 will be one of the hottest cars on the planet in 2010. ‘It will be right up there with the cars that create the biggest splash at launch,’ he said. ‘We expect it to cost around £195,000 – and you’ll probably be able to command a £20k-30k premium in the first few months. It will be very much in demand.’

A new McLaren supercar has said to in the works for some months now, but details on the new car have remained scarce. Originally reported on back in July, the new McLaren is said to be a lightweight two-seater with V8 power being created under the name P11, something a new source has revealed to be true.

Word has it that the P11 is taking aim at the Ferrari F430 Scuderia and the Porsche GT2 and will uses a Mercedes AMG-sourced 6.3L V8 making 500 horsepower. That power will be sent to the rear-wheels and the car should be capable of sub-4 second 0 to 60 runs, as well as a top speed over 200 mph.

Size wise, the P11 should slot between the Audi TT and R8.

The original F1 — designed by Formula One designer Gordon Murray — had three seats and was capable or hitting 241 mph, thanks to its BMW-sourced V12 engine. Fewer than 100 were ever built.

According to British magazine CAR, the P11 promises to be even faster than the F1 and is expected to bow in the fall of 2010.

McLaren recently broke ties with Mercedes after co-creating the SLR supercar. Mercedes has since decide to create the successor to the SLR — the SLC – with a partnership between Mercedes/AMG and H.W.A..

Next year sees the end of production of the Mclaren SLR and also signals the end of the the collaboration between Mercedes and Mclaren as each will create their own successor. We have already seen Mercedes testing its protoypes which is said to be labelled as the SLC, but Mclaren have been a little more secretive.

The Mclaren project codenamed P11 will reportedly hit showrooms in March 2010 as a coupe – that's less than 2 years away meaning we are likely to see its unveiling in a little over a year, a spider version should follow a year later. The new mid-engined car will directly compete with the Ferrari F430 although the McLaren will be lighter and more compact. Power is said to come courtesy of a 550bhp V8 engine which sources at autocar say it will be built by Mahle in Northamptonshire, England. The engine is likely to be based on an the existing Mercedes unit.

The P11 project will then provide the base for a more hardcore version which will be a successor to the legendary Mclaren F1 supercar, codenamed P12. According to leaked documents power will come from a 600bhp V10 engine.

It had been thought the design of the McLaren P11 had been signed off and was just waiting to be engineered into prototype form. But following a report by Autocar we can tell you the model's original designs have been scrapped and its back to the drawing board, a move that will put the model's launch date back by 12 months. It also explains the real reason why the company hired the former BMW, Mini, Fiat and Ferrari designer Frank Stapleton to head up their design team.

Stephenson will join McLaren in a couple of months and he will head up the designs for a small family of supercars set to be launched by the brand as soon as 2009. The engineering side of the development is said to be fixed with the Mercedes-sourced direct-injection 6.2-litre AMG unit mated to a double-clutch gearbox set to be incorporated, however the design is not.

Rumours flying around also state that the P11 will spawn both an open-top and GTR race versions in the future.