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Ferrari Opened The Door, McLaren Could Be Next
Ferrari threw us a surprise this month with the 12Cilindri Manuale, bringing back the joy of shifting – even if it's not the old-school mechanical setup. Turns out, people still crave a hands-on drive, even when dual-clutch tech and electrification are taking over.
Looks like Ferrari won't be the only one in the manual game for long. Word is, McLaren's cooking up a hypercar with a stick shift, and we might see it debut in the US next month.
What We Know About McLaren's Mysterious P50
The Supercar Blog says this thing is called the P50, and it's shaping up to be one of the rarest McLarens out there. Details? Still hush-hush. But rumor has it, there's a stick shift involved – though nobody knows if it's the classic H-pattern or some high-tech shift-by-wire trick like Ferrari's latest.
Why does that matter? Ferrari proved you can get the old-school manual feel without giving up the speed and toughness of a dual-clutch. If McLaren goes down the same road, the P50 could be the unicorn manual hypercar fans have been waiting for – without sacrificing performance.
Aside from the gearbox, everything else is a mystery. No word on the engine, hybrid setup, power, or even the chassis. All we know is that McLaren plans to show it off at The Quail during Monterey Car Week, which happens in the second week of August.
An Exclusive Club Gets Even Smaller
The real shocker? The price. The P50 will reportedly cost more than the McLaren W1 – which already starts at over $2 million. And with fewer than 100 units planned, it's going to be way rarer than the W1's 399-car run.
If those rumors prove accurate, the P50 would immediately enter the same ultra-exclusive territory occupied by cars like the Koenigsegg CC850, which cleverly blends a gated manual experience with sophisticated transmission technology, and the Pagani Utopia, one of the few modern hypercars available with a manual gearbox.
Manuals looked like they were on their way out in the hypercar world, with power numbers going up and hybrids taking over. Ferrari's recent move showed there's still hope for gearheads, and now McLaren seems ready to jump in. Whether the P50 is old-school or something totally new, it's bound to be one of the hottest topics at Monterey Car Week.
