McLaren Special Operations could build bespoke SUV

McLaren could make more outlandish models than its current sports car range, with four-seaters and SUVs both possible.

However, chief designer Robert Melville said anything along these lines would have to be made through the company’s specialist division, McLaren Special Operations (MSO).

“Over the last few years, most people at McLaren have at some point been asked about SUVs, four-seaters, motorbikes," he said. "With MSO, we did a car a few years ago that was harking back to coachbuilding. If you come to MSO, we could design you an all-new body, a power increase or decrease. We can design you whatever you want, if you have the money for it.”

A four-seat SUV is possible, therefore, but only at a cost of “millions and millions of pounds”, he said. It would be so high because such a car wouldn’t work on McLaren’s current architecture; the company would have to design a new carbonfibre tub.

If any such vehicle were to be made, its rivals would include limited-run products like the Range Rover Sport SVR, which gets 542bhp from its supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine.

Under the standard McLaren badge, there are no plans to move away from the firm’s mainstream range of sports cars, supercars and hypercars. Even if such a model were to be created, it's hard to see where it would fit in McLaren's current line-up, which is split into the 'Sports', 'Super' and 'Ultimate' series of models.

McLaren's skunkworks division has in the past created special one-off variants of its models - most recently revealing a version of the 650S inspired by Can-Am racing. MSO has also been linked to rumours surrounding a road-going variant of the P1 GTR.