Photo of the day: a decade of McLaren Automotive

You know what we have to thank for the picture above? The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Launched in the early Noughties – during the same era as the Ferrari Enzo and Porsche Carrera GT – it’s never really picked up the same icon status, despite having lots of tasty ingredients stirred into its pot.

“Its arrival in 2003 was the impetus for McLaren’s new road car future,” says, um, McLaren, “a future that was heralded in the 2009 with confirmation of an all-new supercar and accelerated from 2011 with the first deliveries to customers.”

Which is McLaren Automotive’s way of saying the SLR showed its team how much they liked actually making road cars. And perhaps where they wanted the chance to do things their own way, with less weight and complication. To mark how far things have bounded along since, we see the first ten years of new-age McLaren’s life all gathered together in the picture above, lining up at Goodwood Motor Circuit at the 2021 Members’ Meeting. The location where company founder Bruce McLaren so tragically lost his life 51 years ago.

The front row has perhaps the three most important – the first, the 12C (née MP4-12C), the latest, the Artura hybrid, and the big-hitter, the almighty P1 that formed one corner of the hybrid hypercar holy trinity. And effectively the testbed for the Artura which launches new-age McLaren’s second decade.

Tucked behind those, we’ve a 675LT Spider (arguably the best McLaren for handling nerds, albeit the wrong one given the roof’s chopped off) and Elva speedster (best for fly-based facial injury nerds).

Then gaggling together at the back like naughty schoolkids we’ve the softer McLaren GT, the Senna track special and the exquisite 720S supercar in drop-top form. A properly eclectic trio proving just how many different things you can spin from one simple carbon tub. Though arguably quite similar-looking things…

Simple question, folks: which are you taking for a lap of Goodwood?

Top Gear’s beginner’s guide to McLaren