McLaren design boss: First SUV will be 'unmistakably McLaren' as it follows Ferrari, Aston Martin

LAS VEGAS — Kemal Curic hasn't been McLaren's chief design officer for long, but he already knows where he likes to show off its cars — at live events with auto enthusiasts in attendance.

"The moment you put them on the lawn, the light, they come alive somehow," Curic told Yahoo Finance at the Wynn Concours in Las Vegas, where McLaren's McL 6GT supercar made its global public debut.

Curic, who previously ran design at Ford's luxury brand Lincoln and led styling on the prior-generation Ford Mustang, joined McLaren this year .

His arrival comes at a pivotal time for the British luxury automaker. The McL 6GT , first seen at a private unveiling at Monterey Car Week in August, pairs a V8 with a manual gearbox — McLaren's first since the F1 in 1992. CEO Nick Collins told Yahoo Finance the production version, due in 2028, will be limited to about 500 cars priced "in the range of $1.5 million."

Curic said the car came straight from clients, who "really wanted something absolutely visceral, emotional, engaging."

But today's luxury buyer is split, according to Curic. On one end are clients who want a tech-laden hypercar like McLaren's W1 — "a piece of F1 technology as a road car," as he put it. On the other are those who want a man-and-machine experience that is "mechanical [and] really visceral."

"There's almost like these two extremes," Curic said. "I would say there are nuances in this new luxury world. I would not say it's just a single luxury element."

The bigger test is McLaren's future. CYVN Holdings, a mobility investor owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi, completed its takeover of the carmaker last year and merged it with its UK startup Forseven under a new parent, McLaren Group Holdings, led by former Forseven boss Collins.

The financial backing was badly needed, as McLaren posted a record £924 million loss ($1.15 billion) in 2023, and its prior owner, Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, repeatedly injected cash to keep the carmaker afloat.

McLaren will now expand into new product categories, including an SUV . This follows rivals such as Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Bentley into the SUV space.

"You're going to have to be patient with us," Curic said with a smile when asked about a McLaren SUV, though he promised that whatever comes next will be "unmistakably McLaren ... it's going to be executed in our way."

Enthusiasts have been skeptical in the past when sports car makers go the SUV route, but in almost all cases the bigger-footprint vehicles become the brands' top sellers, and profits from those cars subsidize future sportier models.