This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed has hosted the public debuts of many new exciting cars and among the most head-turning, and unexpected, is the McLaren P1 Spider from Lanzante. The British company released the first sketches of the car in the lead-up to the event but even they can’t prepare you for seeing the car in the flesh. To our eyes, it looks so stunning that it’s a shame McLaren itself never actually offered the P1 hypercar as a Spider.
Speaking with YouTuber MrJWW about the
car, Lanzante says it was first approached by a P1 owner who was looking to
transform their car into a Spider. The company took on the project and has
decided that it will build five examples of the car.
Lanzante’s creation looks exactly like a
P1 Spider would have looked like if McLaren built it. Creating the stunning
shape wasn’t easy. One of the key components used to cool the 3.8-liter
twin-turbocharged V8 of the P1 is its central roof scoop but with no roof,
Lanzante had to re-shape the decklid in order to cool the engine without
messing with the car’s timeless design.
The matter of modifying the carbon fiber
monocell also required quite a lot of attention and to make up for the lack of
a roof, Lanzante has had to reinforce and strengthen the base of the A-pillars.
Another big challenge has been redesigning the doors which ordinarily have
hinges on the A-pillars and the roof.
A host of changes have also been made to
the interior of the P1. Most cabin surfaces are now upholstered in a special
SuperFabric that is both weather- and UV-resistant. Various touches of satin
carbon fiber and gloss black have also been applied throughout.
