McLaren Speedtail Blows Past F1 with 250 MPH Top Speed
The entire interior of the Speedtail has been designed to cosset and embrace the driver and their passengers, with the finest hides enveloping almost every surface. The driver’s seat on the Speedtail design model is trimmed in Dark Glacier and Cool White leathers, the former a full aniline material and the latter a new, semi-aniline lightweight leather, developed by the Bridge of Weir Leather Company. The luxurious thickness and supple finish of the leather – the result of using only the finest hides sourced from the best heritage breeds, combined with generations of hand-finished craftsmanship – is unaffected, but by infusing air beneath the surface during the manufacturing process, material density is reduced and the weight cut by 30 percent. The result is proof that luxury can go hand-in-hand with lightweighting.
The lightweight leather can be treated to render it resilient enough to line the floor of the Speedtail and finished in the color or colors of the owner’s choice; in the design model, Dark Glacier and Black have been selected. The leather then extends in a continuous piece to provide covers for the storage compartments beneath the seats, McLaren’s designers drawing on the natural traits of the leather and its inherent rigidity to allow the compartments to open like a piece of luxury luggage.
Specially selected Scandinavian hides are used for the full-aniline leather that trims the dashboard and passenger seats. Unblemished and virtually unchanged from its natural state, this leather is the result of a five-week tanning process using vegetable oils the only addition is the chosen color – in the case of the passenger seats, Dark Glacier – producing a rare automotive material of truly exceptional quality. The finish of the rich leather is almost impossibly soft to the touch and like the grain of a tree or a human fingerprint, the individual patina of the hide is preserved so that every surface is utterly unique in character.
Speedtail owners can additionally select unique stitch patterns in whichever color they wish and bespoke decorative forms can be created within the leather through digital quilting or unique debossed or embossed patterns. Inspired by the finest of furniture and fashion design, the trimmed edges of the leather can even be painted, the color being hand-mixed, hand-painted and then hand-polished to elevate the leather craftsmanship to the highest possible level and deliver an uncompromised aesthetic.
The limited production of the Speedtail has given McLaren the opportunity to push color and materials design into unchartered territory and owners will experience an unprecedented journey of vehicle personalization, leading up to the beginning of 2020 when the first deliveries of this rarest of Ultimate Series McLaren will take place.