A post on McLaren’s official Instagram account caused quite the stir on social media after an image of a raw version of the team’s Formula One race car unintentionally showed a couple of mysterious-looking cars in the background. The immediate reaction from Internet sleuths identified either one of the two models as the upcoming Speedtail, but that speculation has since been debunked by McLaren. Neither of those two models is the Speedtail, or at least that’s what the British automaker is saying.

Mysterious McLaren Models Spotted

On the surface, it seems like an innocuous post from McLaren. At the forefront of the photo is a stripped down version of the team’s Formula One race car. It’s interesting in it of itself, but it’s not really going to generate any headlines. But once you look at the surroundings of the photo, you’ll notice a pair of cars in the top-right section of the photo that don’t look anything like any of the cars that McLaren has these days.

Naturally, the two mysterious cars caused an uproar on social media. Questions on whether one of those two models is the much-hyped Speedtail started piling up to the point that McLaren jumped in the middle of all the commotion to shut down those whispers. Don’t jump to any conclusions, though, because McLaren pointed out because neither of the two mysterious vehicles at the McLaren Technology Centre where the photo was taken is the Speedtail.

The more likely answer is that those two models are design proposals that never made it past that stage. It would definitely make sense given that McLaren’s Instagram post also included a link to an article about an event called McLaren Design Night. That event, according to the automaker, was made up of owners and prospective buyers, a lot of whom were invited at the McLaren Ascot dealership in the U.K. to see first-hand what happens at the McLaren Design Studio where the designs of cars are typically born.

As McLaren also points out, one of the mysterious cars in the photo it shared in its Instagram account was also featured as a scale model at the event, a by-product of the typical design process that goes on inside the McLaren Design Studio.

On the one hand, McLaren might be doing all of us a service by clearing up all the speculation surrounding those two models. Instead of us going crazy speculating what these two models could be, we’re spared of all the trouble. On the other hand, it’s also possible that there’s more than what meets the eye with those two models. McLaren could have made a mistake in the post and tried to cover up its own tracks by coming out and telling all of us to think nothing of the two mysterious cars we saw in the post. Either scenario is possible, especially if it means protecting the buzz surrounding the Speedtail.

That’s something you can expect from a car that’s touted as the spiritual successor of the legendary F1 supercar. Not only is the Speedtail coming in a similar three-seat configuration as its predecessor, but more importantly, it’s going to be developed with a gas-electric powertrain that could blow the F1’s performance capabilities out of the water. The company only intends to build 106 units of the Speedtail, though, unfortunately, all 106 units are already accounted for.

Whatever those two cars are, it’s obvious that both of them look great from where we’re sitting. The one in front, in particular, has a design that would look even cooler if it was given the “Speedtail” designation.

Further reading

Read our full speculative review on the 2019 McLaren Speedtail.

Read our full review on the 2019 McLaren Senna.

Read more McLaren news.