Supercar manufacturer McLaren’s production rate is accelerating fast, with its 10,000th car rolling off the Woking-based company’s production line on Thursday.
Hitting the milestone comes just five years after the business completed its first production car - the McLaren 12C.
It took the privately held business 42 months to build the next 5,000 cars, but work then kicked up a gear, and it needed only a further 22 months to reach the 10,000th.
Demand for McLaren’s cars has been such that the business added a second shift of staff at its factory earlier this year, recruiting 250 workers and taking employees at the business to 1,750.
The extra labour allowed the business to double output of the cars to 20 a day.
McLaren’s growth has been driven by the introduction of its Sports Series cars - nicknamed in the industry as its “budget” supercars - which start at about £140,000.
The car that drove McLaren to its latest milestone was a 570S car. Chief executive Mike Flewitt said: “Much of the development is thanks to the introduction of the Sports Series family and it’s therefore fitting that the 10,000th car is a McLaren 570S.”
The milestone car will not be sold, instead being placed in the company's heritage collection of vehicles.
The Sports Series is a bargain compared to the top-of-the-range P1 car, a petrol-electric hybrid-powered car McLaren recently discontinued, which sold for more than £1m.
Sales of all the cars in McLaren’s range are forecast to almost double this year, taking it beyond 3,000, of which 90pc are exported.
The demand has resulted in the company using the Geneva motor show in March to set out its ambitious “Track 22” business plan, which will see it invest £1bn over the next six years and develop 15 new models with a view to almost tripling sales. It has pencilled in a target of 4,500 cars a year by 2022.
McLaren’s engineering expertise - which stems from its background in Formula 1 - is widely admired both in the automotive industry and other sectors.
In September the business was the subject of intense speculation that Apple had approached it about a tie-up or potential purchase as the California-based company sought to buy in the technology it needs to develop driverless cars.
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