McLaren mega-car to battle Bugatti

And the new warrior will have just one job to do: steal back the performance crown from the 430km/h Bugatti Veyron. And to do that it will be the most powerful, most innovative, and fastest McLaren road car ever. 

"The [F1 successor's] job is to set the performance bar to new levels and stay there for as long as it takes for us to come up with the next one," McLaren design chief Frank Stephenson told CarsGuide. 

But don't expect the Mega-Mac to have a bigger or more powerful engine than the quad-turbocharged V16 Veyron; Stephenson says the 21st century F1 will be an innovative and intelligent hypercar. "This car is not about more power or more performance," he says. "It's actually about how it achieves that power and performance by using an intelligent drivetrain that pushes boundaries."

Stephenson describes the cars styling as looking like a concept of a concept car. "It's that different. It will shock people because its stuff that has never been seen before. I designed it and I still get goosebumps when I see it.

"But none of it is there for show; it all has a functional purpose. The cars aerodynamics will achieve incredibly high levels of downforce through unusual solutions."

Stephenson is no stranger to headline-making designs. His previous work includes the New Mini and the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. The world will get its first Mc attack at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June or the Monaco Grand Prix in May the latter seems more likely given many of the tax haven's mega-rich residents would be McLaren's target customers for the million-dollar hypercar.

The mid-engine coupe's mechanicals are still being developed and tested ahead of its 2014 production start. McLaren is said to have tweaked the 12C's twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 engine for 600kW and added regenerative electric motors similar to the KERS system employed by McLaren in Formula One.

This certainly fit with Stephensons claims of intelligent performance. Rear-wheel drive may struggle to convert that kind of power into a 0-100km/h time to match the Veyrons 2.5sec, so McLaren may employ an all-wheel drive system.

Either way, the McLaren will use a lightweight but expensive carbon fibre frame, like the F1, and like the MP4-12C performance coupe which arrives in Australia next month.