Ricardo has built the 10,000th engine for McLaren, with the milestone engine housed in the OEM’s latest 570S supercar.
Experts from the two companies celebrated the milestone in a ceremony held at Ricardo’s Centenary and Innovations Centre at its Shoreham Technical Centre in the UK on January 24, 2017. Key attendees included McLaren powertrain director, Richard Farquar, Jason March, director of powertrain systems at Ricardo and Mark Barge, MD of performance products at Ricardo.
The partnership between the two was first established in 2011, and has seen an accelerated rate of build year on year. In 2011, 500 engines were manufactured, in 2012 the cumulative total was more than 1,000, in 2014 over 5,000 and in 2018, the aim is to achieve a total manufacture figure in excess of 15,000 units.
The unit has been adapted for application across McLaren’s entire range of super and hyper cars, with a total of eight variations available that have, between them, won the 3-liter to 4-liter category of Engine + Powertrain Technology International’s International Engine of the Year Award, three times.
Barge acknowledged, at the ceremony, the efforts of all teams involved in the project as well as the ‘extremely close’ collaboration between the two firms. With daily communication, and the option for McLaren employees to visit Ricardo and explore all areas of the operation once a week, the two believe that the ‘utmost efficiency’ in both engineering and manufacturing processes can be achieved.
Barge continued to add, “We always strive to do the right thing and that doesn’t matter how much it costs or how long it takes – whether that is spotting unusual things when we’re building an engine or inspecting a part, through to dealing with difficult situations – we do that together.”
Farquar added, “I’d like to thank Ricardo for its hard work – achieving 10,000 vehicles is a massive milestone and as a manufacturing organization it’s something to be very proud of. The accelerated growth of the engine is a reflection of the growth of the company. But it’s not just about the volume, I’m really proud of the product we produce and the many global awards we have won for it.”
On display at the ceremony were McLaren’s MP4-12C, which was fitted with the first ever M838T engine built by Ricardo and the latest 570S, housing the 10,000th unit off the production line.