Could the McLaren P13 get a Honda engine?

Speculation is rife that the McLaren P13 – McLaren’s next car, destined to sit below the 12C – could be powered by a Honda V6 after the recent F1 tie-up.

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McLaren has so far delivered two of the three cars they planned – the Ferrari 458 competitor (the McLaren 12C) and the P1 Hypercar – and next up is the McLaren P13, a more ‘affordable’ car aimed at the heart of the Porsche 911 Turbo.

The McLaren P13 is due to arrive in 2015 and we’re expecting it to get a de-tuned version of the 3.8 litre V8 already found in the 12C (pictured above) and P1, and be priced to take on the almost empty sector (in terms of price) the Porsche 911 Turbo occupies – somewhere around £125k.

It’s a sensible plan to fill a potentially lucrative sector of the supercar market with a mid-engined, rear wheel drive ‘baby’ supercar with performance of around 3.8 seconds to 60mph and stunning handling. It should give the 911 Turbo a run for its money.

But the tie-up between McLaren and Honda – with Honda supplying a new V6 for McLaren’s F1 team from 2015 – has fuelled speculation (started by Motor Trend) that McLaren could instead use a Honda V6 developed from the F1 engine instead of the Ricardo-developed V8 the P1 and 12C use. Does that make sense?

In a sense, yes, McLaren developed the current V8 – loosely based on a Nissan racing engine – with Ricardo, and it’s built by Ricardo (by the sea in Shoreham) and not by McLaren in Woking. Similarly, the engine in the McLaren SLR was a Mercedes lump and the legendary McLaren F1 used a V12 BMW.

So McLaren aren’t precious about building and designing their own engines in-house, so a V6 from Honda developed on the back of the F1 partnership does make some sense.

Where the sense starts to fall apart is in size and capacity. The P13 is developed to take the 12C’s M838T engine – a 3.8 litre V8 – so it would probably mean big changes at a late stage to re-jig everything to take a new Honda V6. And with Honda only just starting work on their F1 engine, it seems unlikely any road-going version would be available in quick sticks.

Add to that the size of the new F1 V6 from Honda – F1 engines will be turbocharged 1.6 litre V6s from 2015 – and it would be a brave move by McLaren to put a 1.6 litre turbo in a £125,000, mid-engined supercar.

It’s an interesting idea – and we understand the logic – but it just doesn’t seem to add up.