McLaren London: Open for business

McLaren London has opened for business at an opening party attended by famous faces including McLaren’s Ron Dennis, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

Almost exactly a year on from McLaren’s announcement that the UK will have three McLaren dealers – London, Birmingham and Manchester – the first of those dealers, McLaren London, opened for business yesterday.

Operated by Jardine Motors (who may be more familiar as Lancaster), Mclaren London is the ground floor face of One Hyde Park, the mega-bucks apartment block you may best know as the building where £1 billion of apartments have been sold – but no one has moved in.

Ron Dennis is probably banking on some of the owners of those apartments – including a Ukrainian Oligarch said to have paid £136 million for his apartment – popping downstairs to take a look at what McLaren has on offer – and bringing along a friend or three.

But even Ukrainian Oligarchs may struggle to persuade McLaren to deliver an MP4-12C any time soon because, as we recently reported, the McLaren MP4-12C is sold out for three years. Assuming McLaren choose not to up production levels, that is.

So the opening of McLaren London isn’t exactly a necessity to get orders flowing in, but it makes for a good bit of PR for McLaren and the opportunity to invite a few famous faces along for a glass of bubbly – and roll out their two world champions, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

A good time was had by all, and McLaren took along their man with the camcorder to record the event for posterity.

McLaren London Launch Photo Gallery

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(14 McLaren London Launch Photos – click a thumbnail to open the gallery)

McLaren London Opening Video

McLaren MP4-12C Photo Gallery

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(51 McLaren MP4-12C Photos – click a thumbnail to open the gallery)