Will McLaren introduce an SUV like its supercar rivals? Its chief design officer hints at a maybe

Like many designers we’ve met, Tobias Suhlmann arrives fully clad in black. Black shirt with rolled-up sleeves, black jeans and a Cartier Santos with matte black dial and matching black alligator strap that catches my eye whenever he gesticulates to emphasise a point during our interview.

“I like brands with a strong heritage, but those that also know how to push the brand into the future without losing its DNA – and without being retro,” said Suhlmann, on his first visit to Singapore earlier this year.

It’s a philosophy made particularly pertinent once he begins elaborating on his new position and mission since returning to McLaren Automotive as chief design officer in September 2023.

Suhlmann, whose last role was as director of design at Bentley, had previously worked as chief designer for Special Projects, overseeing the design of the ultra-futuristic looking, track-only McLaren Solus GT single-seat hypercar, which materialised from a video game concept in 2021.

Prior to this, Suhlmann has also held roles as the head of exterior design at both Bugatti and Aston Martin throughout his altogether 20 years in the automotive industry.

Now, he is tasked with developing McLaren’s new design language as part of the company’s ‘Future of Performance’ business strategy in his encore with the British marque.

This means Suhlmann is responsible for all aspects of brand design, leading a design team involved in future concepts, exterior and interior styling, colour and materials, often working directly with customers to personalise their vehicles before they are hand-assembled at the McLaren Production Centre located next to the brand’s headquarters – the ultra-modern Norman Foster-designed McLaren Technology Centre – in Woking, Surrey, about an hour-and-a-half south of London.

“The first thing I did with the team was to look into the DNA; to really deep dive into the brand history, which started from racing,” said Suhlmann, referring to the genealogy shared with the McLaren Formula One racing team established by Bruce McLaren in 1963.“We come from racing so being driver-focused is important to us, and everything inside and outside of our cars is made for performance; this is in our DNA and we will now put this as the signature for our future models,” he explained.

A NEW DESIGN LANGUAGE

Suhlmann and his design team have therefore created a “new form language” upon which all future McLaren models will be based, anchored by five core principles: Epic, athletic, focused, intelligent, and functional.

This philosophy is further oriented around several key signature elements on the front, the side and the rear of the car that will come to characterise and bind together the McLaren identity of every one of its cars that rolls off the factory floor from here on out.

According to Suhlmann, it starts with the “performance line” that runs across the body; a low shoulder line and a sunken cabin with high fenders that make the driver feel “protected”. Those big air intakes in the front are another signature we can expect to continue on future models.

“We have the best ergonomics in the world because we sit really low and visibility is really good in our cars,” he said.

THE F1 ADVANTAGE

To be fair, all supercar makers generally subscribe to these similar design principles. Why, then, would a customer choose to buy a McLaren over, say, a Lamborghini or a Ferrari?

“Because of the performance and the driving experience,” said Suhlmann. “They really love the technical side of our products, and they really love to drive our cars. They love the monocoque cockpit and the fact that it is so driver-focused – and they love that our cars are so easy to handle and intuitive to drive. And this is why we are different from other brands,” he continued.

One of the key characteristics that makes a McLaren cockpit so driver-focused is its fine balance between the transition to digital, and the analogue elements its designers consciously choose to retain.

“If everything is touchscreen and you have layers and layers of menus you have to swipe through to find something, then you’re not driver focused. Drivers want to be in the moment, they want to feel the car,” he illustrated.

Fair point, and you could indeed say McLaren might have an edge over its rivals, with the department of its Formula One racing team housed right next door in the same facility.

“We’re one family and we definitely share technologies and know-how. I can go to the wind tunnel, which we used when we worked on the Solus GT, for example. And when it comes to performance targets, we can learn a lot from racing. I often go over and talk to them, learn from them, ask things like how we can use materials like carbon fibre in a different way to make our road cars lighter as well,” he shared.

IS A MCLAREN SUV COMING?

These days, Suhlmann is on a mission to more clearly delineate McLaren’s model line-up so customers can better distinguish them apart.

“If we want to grow the portfolio, I feel very strongly that we need to separate the models from each other more,” he said.

“Like a family, you have a family face, but every member of the family is different, looks different and should have a different character and you need to see that [distinction], but you still see it as one family. And with the signature elements I explained earlier, it gives my team a lot of freedom to do that,” Suhlmann added.

Does this mean the family might soon welcome the birth of a McLaren SUV, like its rivals Lamborghini has done with the Urus and more recently, Ferrari with the Purosangue?

While Suhlmann can neither confirm nor deny these rumours, he does say this: “We also talk about shared performance, and performance for us is something more than just two seats.”

“We are now studying different ways of how we work, but everything will stay true to the brand and stay true to the DNA, also in terms of being lightweight and in terms of performance. This is our core, and we will not veer away from that,” he revealed.

HOW ABOUT A FULLY ELECTRIC MCLAREN?

There’s also been talk that the company is working on a fully-electric McLaren, following the successful launch of its production plug-in hybrid, the McLaren Artura, in 2022, as well as the McLaren Artura Spider open-top version this year.

“I think we are very open,” Suhlmann further hinted. “This is also quite important for us, and these are very exciting times at the moment.”

“What do you see in the whole industry, where we talk about EVs and hybrids and what’s in the future? So, we look into all possibilities and if you do not look into that, you would have done something wrong,” he reasoned.

Likening the continued evolution of McLaren’s automotive business to the changes in the Formula One series and how its racing team needs to adapt to remain competitive, Suhlmann elaborated: “The rules change and we have to be open to this. The future is very bright; we can explore so many things and it’s very motivating, especially when you see what [the] Formula One [team] is doing. We are always pushing the limits, pushing the boundaries, and we will always have a recognisable, true McLaren, and it doesn't matter which powertrain we will have.”