McLaren Says Production Outside UK Isn’t Out of the Question

A few weeks ago, Lotus surprised enthusiasts when news broke that the British sports car maker was considering ending automotive production at its historic Hethel facility in the U.K. and moving shop across the pond. Such a move was apparently avoided thanks in no small part to the British government. But it still raised an important point: In this era of tariffs and local, specialized production, every automaker is considering diversifying its manufacturing footprint on some level. Now, the newly installed CEO of McLaren has hinted that while Woking will remain home base for its own supercars, it’s not opposed to building vehicles outside the U.K. when and where it makes sense.

We caught up with Nick Collins at Monterey Car Week earlier in the month. So much has happened at McLaren in 2025 thus far; it merged with EV startup Forseven, and slashed around 500 jobs. Collins leads McLaren Automotive as well as McLaren Group Holdings, the overarching unit that resulted from that consolidation.

As for its on-track pursuits, the company recently announced a plan to join the top class of endurance racing. And, barring a catastrophe, McLaren will, in all likelihood, lock up both Formula 1 drivers’ and constructors’ championships in a few months’ time. Headwinds in the car sales business to be sure, but it could also be argued that the brand has never been stronger.

“We had a situation where we were a bit overstocked around the world through our dealers,” Collins told us. “So the very first week [after the merger], we triggered the painful decision to reduce our production volume, to realign our supply to our underlying demand to get our stock levels in our retailers down to an idealized level by the end of the year so that we can underpin the residual values of the car, make our customers feel better because their car will be worth more when they trade it back in. Get the business stable. It’s all fairly obvious things in an automotive context, but the speed of decision-making is pretty clear.”

Despite everything that will change at McLaren, one thing that won’t is supercar building at the geographic “soul of the company,” in Collins’ words: the McLaren Technology and Production Centers. “That’s going to be home for a very, very long period of time,” he affirmed. However, Collins also said—without getting too specific—that “some things might make sense to build in other locations” depending on where Woking’s optimal capacity lies.

“What I’d like to get in Woking is an operating level that is humming smoothly, but the maximum of its capacity at a sensible place,” Collins said. “I’m not going to give a volume number to that because it needs to be capacity that is driving world-class levels of quality out the door.”

Collins said McLaren’s current standard of production is “the best quality cars we’ve ever built,” and also gave “credit to the prior leadership team and what they’ve done to get to where we’re now from a difficult place.” Collins replaced former CEO Michael Leiters in April.

“We’ve only got one objective, which is to be the best in the world in quality. So I don’t want to drive that production system to a level where we start to compromise that. We need to determine where the optimum operator level is and then try to run that facility.”

The question is what McLaren may choose to build outside of its headquarters. That mythical SUV that’s been looming for years seems like the most obvious choice. Not to mention whatever fully electric machines lie in the storied marque’s future, now that it’s joined forces with a young company that claims plenty of expertise in that space.

Got tips? Send ’em to tips@thedrive.com

The post McLaren Says Production Outside UK Isn’t Out of the Question appeared first on The Drive.