McLaren Will Gain Nio, Gordon Murray Tech After Merger With Startup You’ve Never Heard Of

Last month, CYVN Holdings—the Abu Dhabi government-owned investment firm—announced that McLaren and the British automotive tech startup Forseven would merge. Now, according to Autocar, the arranged marriage is official, and both companies will combine to operate as one, called McLaren Group Holdings. Furthermore, McLaren will also borrow technology from other brands CYVN has invested in, including Chinese EV maker Nio and Gordon Murray Technologies (GMT).

Since the Forseven name was never meant to be a customer-facing brand, and the name was just a placeholder, it’s gone. Instead, the company’s CEO, Nick Collins, a former senior engineer at Ford and Jaguar Land Rover, will run the newly formed McLaren Group. “We’re about to embark on the most exciting British automotive story in decades,” he told Autocar. The corporate rearrangement is expected to take around six months.

Part of Collins’ exciting new story will be bringing new models to McLaren that were already in development under Forseven. These products are being designed to evolve McLaren’s current design language, keeping it close to the brand’s traditional styling while also taking new steps. A design team of 50 people, split between the U.K. and Australia, reportedly work around the clock, using both old-school physical models and new-school virtual reality. According to Collins, what they’ve done in the last year has been “staggering.”

More important than their designs will be their technology. Since both Forseven and Nio had already been under CYVN, there is an existing tech license agreement between the two companies that precedes the McLaren merger. McLaren won’t use Nio chassis or platforms but “technology chunks,” according to Collins. So expect some of Nio’s battery tech to be featured in both electric and hybrid McLarens moving forward.

Nio isn’t the most exciting new partner, though; that would be GMT. Gordon Murray’s technology arm is best known for creating a chassis development process it calls iStream. The firm has claimed before that it’s faster, cheaper, and more emissions-efficient than most conventional processes, while also delivering cars that are stronger and lighter. If McLaren can harness that same technology, we could see cars that rival Murray’s brilliant GMA T.33.

“Whether it’s a direct or indirect relationship, technology plays a role,” said Collins. “It might be manufacturing technology in terms of how you build the car that gives it a certain weight level [iStream]. It might be technology that gives it performance, quietness, connectivity, or active safety. People buy a package.”

GMT’s tech could also help bring new models to market that we otherwise wouldn’t see, like an SUV—something McLaren’s business could probably use these days. And Collins is willing to take risks on unexpected vehicle types. He used the three-door Land Rover Defender 90, a project he oversaw while at JLR, as an example of a car that seemed ill-advised at first but ended up working. “The three-door car market was dead,” he told Autocar. “If you get the car right, then it will recreate a market or generate a market”.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that McLaren is gaining access to new technologies under CYVN. Forseven will soon cease to exist, and the joint company will just be known as McLaren, borrowing tech from Nio and GMT to build better cars and expand its lineup. While CYVN is supplying the financing for all of this, McLaren will continue to be based in England—the Woking factory will remain, but the new headquarters will be in Bicester, Oxfordshire.

“We wanted to make a British brand, and I had a very clear perspective of where I felt Britain as an automotive nation excels and where we should play with the business,” Collins said.

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