McLaren’s Heritage Collection Is Being Partially Sold to Fund Development of the Artura: Report

The McLaren Artura is costing McLaren more than it possibly bargained for. The British supercar company has now been forced to sell off a portion of its heritage collection to raise funds for the plug-in hybrid Artura, which needs “certain technical upgrades,” according to Bloomberg.

The McLaren heritage collection counts over 50 Formula 1 cars, and — among other things — even includes Niki Lauda’s 1984 championship MP4/2A-01 and the F1 GTR 01R that brought McLaren the “triple crown” after winning at the Indy 500, Le Mans and in F1, per Autocar. But a portion of the prized collection is being sold for $123 million to Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat Holding Co., which is McLaren’s main shareholder, as Bloomberg reports.

The sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain has nearly a 60 percent stake of McLaren, so you could say the holding company is, at least, a little invested in the success of the company and its new PHEV Artura. Of course, this latest investment has been sweetened by the exchange of an undisclosed number of vehicles from the historic collection. McLaren hasn’t given any details of what cars were sold, but it sounds like there could be more sell-offs to come.

The company tells Bloomberg it’s currently “in active talks with all shareholders regarding a recapitalization of the group,” which sounds like it needs even more money to upgrade the Artura — and to keep its funds churning. The company is also open to partnerships, which makes sense given a reported loss of $247 million from January through September of 2022. McLaren’s liquidity is now at $106 million, down from $208 million at the last reporting period.

This isn’t the first time McLaren has had to sell some of its prized cars to stay afloat; the company reportedly did so to weather the global pandemic in 2020, and now it’s doing so again to keep the Artura going. I guess this means that McLaren SUV can’t come soon enough, if the company plans to hold on to the remaining cars in its historic collection.