McLaren 540C is as cheap as a McLaren will get

The McLaren 540C – McLaren’s new entry-level car – represents the pricing floor for the marque, with no plans to build a car below the 540C.

The McLaren 540C has only just been revealed as the new ‘affordable’ McLaren, but if £126,000 isn’t your idea of affordable then you’re out of luck – McLaren won’t be building a car any cheaper.

McLaren’s director of communications, in conversation with TTAC, confirmed it was almost impossible for McLaren to look at a car below the 540C as they couldn’t do it profitably and maintain their carbon fibre technology. Which is really no big surprise.

What’s perhaps slightly more surprising is that McLaren won’t be expanding beyond their current capacity of around 4,000 cars a year, a number they should now start heading towards with the arrival of the 540C and 570S.

We’d have thought that the 540C and 570S – especially once the Spider and hardcore versions arrive – would have the potential to push sales for McLaren beyond that 4,000 capacity. But maybe McLaren has decided to control numbers to maintain exclusivity?

But even though McLaren aren’t planning a model below the 540C, they are planning new models.

Most interesting on the list of McLarens on the way is probably the P15, a car that’s expected to offer almost as much as the mighty McLaren P1, but at half the price, although we don’t expect to see the P15 until 2018.

Before that we’ll be getting the P16, a replacement for the current 650S, which should arrive in late 2017 and there seem to be plans to build a 2+2 of some description – maybe even with the engine at the front – but that probably won’t happen until after the P15 arrives.

So, lots to look forward to from McLaren, but nothing cheaper than a 540C.