McLaren has introduced a new logo for what it calls a new era of performance carmaking. The redesign is based on the brand’s roots and not the nostalgic image, so the old McLaren branding is more contemporary.
The logo change arrives just as McLaren is at a very important moment in the development of its brand, to build on its reputation for high-performance mid-engined sports cars and be able to build on its high-performance, mid-engined sports cars brand value as it prepares itself for more product development and for a future product strategy as well, with a global product strategy to be developed. The biggest future change is an SUV, a major departure from the traditional sports-car range, and a car of the brand's existing sports-car world.
New McLaren logo for the future of McLaren
McLaren’s new logo retains the brand’s core visual elements, but is clean and modern. Instead of just recreating an older emblem, the new identity takes inspiration from McLaren’s history and changes it to fit the present day.
The company’s branding has evolved multiple times in its history as its racing activities, road-car business, and corporate identity have changed over the years. The new design is just one step toward that, and the latest design is another major one.
The connection of the new design to McLaren’s history is a big deal when it comes to motorsport and performance engineering, and since it has a long history of working with the company and its motorsport roots, it is very important, too. McLaren’s name has become synonymous with Formula 1 today and high-performance road cars, and its visual identity has always been part of that brand image.
From Racing Heritage to Road Cars
McLaren’s current road-car journey has been built on lightweight construction, aerodynamic and powerful mid-engined layouts. Models of the company have generally aimed at delivering high performance and are rooted in motorsport technology.
The new logo is a new one, and McLaren looks to carry those principles into its next phase of development.
While the new badge is a good branding exercise, the bigger story might be what McLaren’s product range will be in the next few years. They have always been very much about sports cars and supercars, so an entry into the world of that kind of vehicle is interesting.
McLaren SUV Could Change the Brand's Direction
An SUV would represent a radical departure from McLaren’s current product philosophy. Luxury and performance manufacturers have seen an explosion of demand for the SUV category as a whole and their market of customers outside the traditional sports car market.
For McLaren, building an SUV would help it to combine the performance-minded engineering approach of the brand with the practicality and everyday usability that it would deliver to the brand.
The move would also put McLaren in competition with performance-oriented SUVs from other luxury and exotic-car manufacturers making high-performance luxury and exotic car manufacturers such as Tesla, but details of a potential McLaren SUV, such as the final design, powertrain and launch date, will also determine how closely it follows the company’s sports-car philosophy of a future SUV, and how close will it actually be to the company's sports-car philosophy.
A New identity for a new era
The logo redesigned here is more than a small visual upgrade. At a time when McLaren is trying to expand its presence, and at the same time its brand is still so much that the character and character of the marque is very much in the DNA of the brand.
The problem is to balance heritage with what we want to do in the future. McLaren's new identity will be to acknowledge its history without appearing stuck in the past, and the ability to enter new vehicle categories indicates the company is thinking of a bigger automotive strategy.
For fans, the new logo will naturally raise questions about what comes next. McLaren's future product plans (e.g., an SUV) could determine how much of a portfolio of products will change in the years ahead.
The recent branding exercise is the first evidence that McLaren wants its visual identity to evolve with its business. The mid-engined sports cars are still at the heart of the brand, yet it seems that the company is likely to go beyond the supercar formula.
