Are McLaren Elva buyers thin on the ground? Mclaren cuts Elva production to 249

The McLaren Elva, a limited run McLaren Ultimate Series revealed in November, is having its production run cut from 349 to 249 cars.

McLaren seem to have the happy knack of delivering seemingly endless takes on a handful of basics to eager buyers willing to lap up small differentiators and keep McLaren’s bank balance healthy.

Back in November, McLaren revealed the Elva as a new Ultimate Series model (a whole four and a half months ago, but there has of course been another new McLaren in the meantime with the McLaren 620R) sitting in the same rarefied space as the P1, Senna and Longtail, and commanding an equally rarefied price tag of £1.425 million.

The differentiator this time round is that the Elva – named after one of Bruce McLaren’s 1960s race cars – has no windows and no roof (although McLaren will flog you one with a windscreen if you must), but it comes complete with McLaren’s ubiquitous 4.0 litre twin-turbo V8, here good for 804bhp going to the back wheels through a seven-speed ‘box and scooting to 62mph in under 3.0 seconds.

McLaren fanfared the exclusivity of the Elva as a run of just 399 units, low enough for a good degree of exclusivity but high enough to make a quick bob or two. Put that plan seems to have gone a bit Pete Tong.

Now, rather than producing 399 Elvas, McLaren boss Mike Flewitt has told The Australian Financial Review (according to Motor1) that the Elva will now be produced in a run of just 249 cars.

According to Flewitt, McLaren has decided to reduce the run after feedback from buyers who wanted more exclusivity than the Elva’s initial planned run offered.

Of course they did.