Just last week we brought you news a rumor that McLaren was building a limited-edition model that wouldn’t be a successor to the iconic McLaren F1, but a modern interpretation of it. When the story went live on Autocar, the outlet released a number of renderings of what the car might look like. The rumor itself sounded quite promising and spawned a lot of public interest. That said, it should be no surprise that when the chance arose, journalists went straight to McLaren to get the scoop.

According to Car and Driver, McLaren Boss Mike Flewitt was asked all about it at the company’s recent financial results meeting. He offered up news on the rumor, but it was – unfortunately – not the news we were looking to hear. When asked about the Hyper GT, Flewitt’s reply was, “You get asked all the time. I regularly get asked for three seats and a V-12 and a manual gearbox. I just don’t think there’s a real business case to do one of those.” He continued, “I haven’t got six VIN numbers in my bottom drawer that we forgot to use, either. People often hark back to things that they’ve loved, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to do now.”

He did express a little bit of humor over Autocar’s renderings, however, apparently suggesting in a joking way that he would replace McLaren's design team with Autocar’s artists. While that is great for a good laugh, it’s still quite the letdown that we won’t be seeing a three-seater McLaren any time soon. Of course, we can still hold onto hope but, when it comes to seeing a modern F1 by 2018, I wouldn’t suggest holding your breath.

Why it Matters

It really is unfortunate that McLaren isn’t interesting in building a successor or modern interpretation of the F1. It was an amazing, legendary, iconic model that paved the road for everything in McLarens stable. One could even argue that without the F1, McLaren would be nowhere near the company it is now. Then again, you can’t really argue with Flewitt’s logic too much. People do tend to look back at their past, but creating a modern F1 would be expensive and time-consuming. Plus, there’s no guarantee that those asking for such a model would actually follow through if McLaren were to build one. If you really want a modern F1, maybe with enough money and a few trips to MSO you can get lucky but, again, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one either.