McLaren’s First ‘MonoCell’ Arrives from New Innovation Center
Carbon fiber tub prototype will be used by McLaren for crash testing, is a key to the automaker’s long-term plans.
Lotus founder Colin Chapman believed that the key to performance was not through tons of horsepower or the use of turbos or superchargers, but through dropping the weight of the car in the first place. And when it comes to lightweight, carbon fiber is the current king.
McLaren knows this well, as it introduced the material to Formula One in the Eighties, and uses it in its road cars to this day. With hybridization on the horizon, McLaren will go lighter still with the help of its new ‘MonoCell’ prototype carbon fiber tub.
Otherwise known as ‘Prototype Lightweight Tub, McLaren Composites Technology Centre – 01,’ the McLaren MonoCell was delivered to its production center in Woking, England from the new McLaren Composites Technology Centre in Yorkshire, which was opened last year by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The MonoCell, which will be used for crash testing, is the first of many innovations to come from the $66-million facility, with the aim of helping McLaren build the lightest hybrid cars around when all of their cars go hybrid in 2024 by getting the most out of carbon fiber to offset the heavier hybrid powertrains.
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