McLaren is among the most prestigious of names in the motoring and motorsport worlds. Since its entrance to F1 in 1963, the Woking based manufacturer has created some beautiful machines and given them to a host of racing legends. This winning formula has so far lead to a total of 12 drivers championships making McLaren second only to the legendary Scuderia Ferrari.
The production cars aren’t half bad either. In 1985 McLaren shook up the car scene with the record shattering F1 and has since then produced multitudes of awe-inspiring exotic metal.
However, things have not been going in the right direction for the British automaker for a while now. The company’s ambitious plans are behind schedule as a result of the pandemic and things aren’t looking up from here. In a report published by Forbes as recently as this week, it seems that for many reasons, the situation is increasingly dire.
For starters, the infamous Mclaren F1 team has not been performing as well as it used to and when co-founder Ron Dennis stepped down the company had to borrow $333 million to buy his shares back. This unfortunate series of events was made worse by the pandemic which damaged sales and plans for the future of the Woking-based company.
The $368.8 million that investors pumped into the company had to be redirected following the disastrous effects of coronnavirus on sales and income. In the first quarter of 2019, McLaren sold 953 cars, whereas the first quarter of 2020 saw just 307 cars leave dealership floors. The gravity of this situation is made worse by the fact that McLaren has 60 days to pay suppliers after receiving an invoice.
The solution? McLaren has taken the matter of being able to sell its historic car collection and property to court. However, investors fear that this will lower the value of the company and lead to insolvency. It seems that the best that McLaren can hope for now is a white knight billionaire investor.
Featured image: The new 765LT courtesy of McLaren Automotive.