Motoring News
Today, 27 November 2015McLaren rules out affordable Porsche Cayman rival
McLaren's 570S Spider will come to market in 2017
McLaren’s chief designer Robert Melville says the British sports car brand won't chase volume sales by making a car to sit below the new 540C and 570S
McLaren has ruled out making a more affordable model to rival the likes of the Porsche Cayman by saying it has no intention of going below its 911-rivalling 540C and 570S.Although McLaren is looking to attract a larger audience with its new entry-level models, it wants to retain an element of high-end appeal.“[A Cayman rival] is a step too far. That is not exclusive enough for us,” said McLaren’s chief designer, Robert Melville. “You look at Ferrari. They are coming from very high end. This [the 570S] is stretching us down to R8s and 911s and is as low as we’d want to come.”Melville said the 570S was designed to cater to customers who wanted a sports car that could be used every day.The 570S opens up McLaren to a different type of customer, according to insiders. Previous cars, such as the P1 and the 650S, were bought by wealthy owners with multiple cars to perform different functions. The usability of the 570S means that, McLaren reckons, it could be bought by more cautious owners looking to use it more often
read moreMatt Prior's tester's notes - why do most of us dislike Lewis Hamilton?
He's the reigning Formula 1 world champion, he's a sports star and he's British - yet a recent poll revealed that most of us don't like Lewis Hamilton
"Do you like Lewis Hamilton?” So asked a poll about the current and three-time world Formula 1 champion at the end of an article on The Telegraph website recently, titled: ‘Lewis Hamilton: the champion it is mathematically impossible to like’. For: does a lot of good work for charity, drives a car quickly. Against: sings rap songs, wears bad clothes. Harsh.Now, I don’t know whether it says more about Lewis Hamilton or The Telegraph’s demographic that only 47% of responders clicked to say that ‘yes’, they did actually like him.Curious. We’re talking about the reigning F1 world champion, a Briton racing for a team based in Brackley, the first British three-time world champion since Jackie Stewart. As British as ‘our Nige’. Yet less than half of a survey think he’s all right?Anyway, I’m sure he’s mortified. Or something. Either way, Hamilton has had an interesting time of it recently, which is the kind of thing that divides opinion of him. First, there was the thing the other week when he crashed his Pagani Zonda into some parked cars in Monaco late at night while suffering excess tiredness.Then last week he told German magazine Sport Bild that it’s difficult to assess how good Sebastian Vettel is because his team-mates haven’t been fast, like Fernando Alonso, but have been “Mark Webber, who was not on his level, and Kimi Räikkönen, who is no longer at the peak of his performance”. Which is the sort of commen
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