Anything Ferrari can do, McLaren can do better. At least that's what the boys in Woking seem to believe. After all, McLaren has trounced Ferrari around the Formula One circuit for the past several years now. But while the British team has followed its Italian rival from grand prix racing into building supercars with the McLaren F1, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and (most recently) the MP4-12C, one thing Ferrari does that McLaren doesn't is grand tourers. And with the advent of the FF, shooting brakes.
That could all change, however, if the latest rumors are to be believed. (Which is something which, in this case, we wouldn't take for granted.) According to the rumormongers over at Auto Express, McLaren is preparing a shooting brake based of the MP4-12C (pictured above, flashing its air brake). Now given that the 12C is a mid-engined supercar and not a front-engined GT like the Ferrari Four, we'd say that makes about as much sense as Renault reaching back into its showcar history to build the Espace F1.
The rumors further state that the McLaren shooting brake (fancy-talk for a two-door wagon) would go downmarket to rival the Porsche 911 – which is something we've been expecting McLaren to pursue sometime after the MP4 roadster and the upmarket successor to the original F1 supercar. But something's a little amiss here, so for the time being, we'll take this particular report with a grain of salt that would dwarf Lot's wife. Then again, we did run into McLaren design director Frank Stephenson checking out the Fisker Surf in Paris last year...
