McLaren McL 820 Announced: New Supercar Arrives In 2027 To Replace The 750S

Woking has a new supercar, a new naming system and a giant camouflaged kiwi in central London. What’s with the Kiwi?

October 31, 2026

Every McLaren fan knows the kiwi. Bruce McLaren, the New Zealander who founded his team in 1963 and won races in cars bearing his own name, put his country’s national bird at the centre of the team’s very first crest, and the “Speedy Kiwi” that followed in 1971 became one of motorsport’s best-loved logos.

So when a camouflaged kiwi statue appeared in Covent Garden, London, with “McL 820” printed on its side, the message to anyone who grew up dreaming about the M8 Can-Am cars and Senna’s MP4/4 was clear enough. Something important was coming.

That something is the McL 820, the next McLaren series supercar, due in 2027. The 820 in the name stands for 820PS, which converts to about 809hp. That makes it the most powerful series McLaren yet, comfortably ahead of the 740hp 750S it replaces. Only the limited-run specials, the Senna, Speedtail and W1, sit in a different league. McLaren has confirmed the name, the output and the year. Everything else is for 2027, which means there is plenty to unpick in the meantime.

How Does McLaren Name Its Cars Now?

The new system is simple. McL is the prefix, taken from the team’s racing side, and the number is the car’s output in PS. McLaren says the idea is to unify the road cars and the racing operation under one naming approach, which explains why the badge reads like a Formula 1 chassis code. The F1 cars have carried MCL designations since 2017.

It also ends an era of suffixes. Since the 12C, Woking’s core cars have worn a number plus a letter or two, from the 650S and 720S to the 765LT and 750S. Plenty of people will still type “McLaren 820S” out of habit, but the car is officially the McL 820.

The first car to wear the new prefix was the McL 6GT concept shown at Monterey Car Week in August. It was a carbon-bodied V8 tribute to Bruce McLaren’s M6GT with a six-speed manual, the first in a McLaren since the F1. The 6GT goes on sale in 2028 as a separate low-volume model, so the McL 820 is the first core car under the new scheme.

The Hybrid V8 Question

McLaren is not giving it out yet, but the clues point one way. For the first time, Woking will build its own engines in-house, after years of co-developing its V8s with Ricardo. Two new hybrid powertrains are in the works, and McLaren’s chief operating officer Michael Straughan has said they are “obviously going to start with the current V8 products or the future generation of that”. We expect a hybridised evolution of the twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8.

There is also a dissenting theory. One report claims the next core McLaren will use a twin-turbo V6 hybrid making around 810hp, sitting between the Artura and the outgoing V8 car. Until McLaren shows the engine, treat both as speculation.

The layout is easier to call. Expect the engine in the middle and a carbon fibre tub around the occupants, the formula McLaren has refined since the 12C. For reference, the 750S makes 740hp and 800 Nm from its 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, weighs 1,277 kg dry and does 0 to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds. Hybrid hardware adds weight, so the McL 820’s real test is how much of that lightness survives.

Why Is The Kiwi Wearing Camouflage?

Bruce McLaren’s road car dream predates the F1 by more than two decades. His M6GT prototype, registered OBH 500H, was a road-going version of the M6A Can-Am racer, and he drove it to race meetings himself. He reportedly planned a run of 250 before he was killed testing the M8D at Goodwood in 1970, aged 32. It took until the McLaren F1 of the 1990s for his road car ambition to be realised.

Wrapping the kiwi in test-car camouflage ties the McL 820 back to that story, and to the founder whose question McLaren still asks of every car: how do we make this one better than the last?

Where The McL 820 Fits In McLaren’s Shake-Up

This car carries more weight than any core McLaren since the 12C. The 750S is taking its final orders and leaves production in 2027, with the 788HS as its send-off. McLaren has also confirmed its first SUV, part of a roughly £500 million investment that brings engine building in-house. For a while, the McL 820 will be the headline act in the showroom.

It is also the first new series McLaren developed under its Abu Dhabi-based owner CYVN Holdings, which gives buyers in this part of the world a little extra reason to pay attention. The rivals are formidable. Ferrari’s 296 GTB makes about 819hp from a V6 hybrid, the Lamborghini Temerario about 907hp from a hybrid V8, and the Ferrari 849 Testarossa about 1,036hp. An 809hp McLaren will have to win on weight, steering feel, and the kind of chassis engineering that made the 720S a benchmark.

What We Still Don’t Know

McLaren has shown no exterior, interior, screen, wheel, or chassis details yet. For a baseline, the 750S has an 8-inch central screen and rides on 19-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels. Expect the full specification and the cabin when the McL 820 is revealed in 2027.