McLaren on Ice

McLaren has fallen victim to Eckhardt Cordes's icy touch. The new Mercedes boss has put several upcoming car projects--including the smart formore--on hold, pending proof of each project's profitability.

For McLaren, 40 percent owned by DaimlerChrysler, the same has happened to its mid-engine supercar, codenamed P8. It was to have been a Ferrari F430/ Lamborghini Gallardo rival with an all-carbon-fiber body and AMG engine. Last year, Mercedes carried out an intensive feasibility study. Ron Dennis talked about building 2000 cars per year, which was too much for the McLaren factory where race cars and the SLR are built. He spoke of subcontracting the P8. Dennis still claims that the study showed it would have turned a profit.

But now, most of the engineers have been laid off. Even Gordon Murray, designer of the F1 supercar, has left. He'd become marginalized from the Mercedes-installed team for some time and stopped working on the SLR a year before it launched. His last role was as executive director of advanced concepts. A year ago, he said, "There's a danger we'll become a small big company, and that's not what we're good at. I'm probably coming to a bit of a crossroads."

Now rumored to be working on an all-new sports car with backing from a group of mystery investors, Murray was involved last autumn in a bid to buy TVR along with ex-McLaren man Creighton Brown and MG-Rover marketing boss Nigel Gordon- Stewart. But Russian millionaire Nikolai Smolenski made his bid first. Too bad--imagine a Murray-engineered TVR.