McLaren's First-Ever SUV Reportedly Has a Codename — and an Abu Dhabi Owner Behind the Push

A Supercar Purist's Worst Nightmare, Reportedly Coming in 2028

For two decades, McLaren has built one kind of car: two-seat, carbon-tubbed, mid-engined supercars, full stop. According to a new report, that's reportedly about to change — and the car at the center of it already has a codename.

According to Motor1, citing Automotive News' reporting on a McLaren dealer meeting held in November 2025, the British marque's first-ever high-riding performance vehicle — internally known as P47 — is being targeted for a 2028 debut, and it's reportedly set to run a hybrid V8 powertrain rather than the all-electric setup some earlier rumors pointed to. Sources described to Automotive News a five-seat layout with proportions said to land somewhere close to a Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, though slightly larger. None of this is confirmed on the record by McLaren, and the timeline, powertrain, and even the five-seat claim should all be read as unconfirmed reporting, not a spec sheet.

What McLaren has said, on the record, is vaguer but points the same direction. CEO Nick Collins has publicly acknowledged the company is working on a vehicle with "more than two seats" — about as close to confirming an SUV as a supercar maker typically gets before an official reveal. It's also reportedly understood, per the same reporting, that the P47 won't be built on the carbon monocoque chassis underpinning McLaren's existing supercar lineup, which would make it the most structurally un-McLaren McLaren the company has ever built.

Why This Time Might Be Different

McLaren has flirted with an SUV before and backed away. A 2022 Autocar report had pointed to an all-electric high-rider arriving closer to 2030; that timeline and powertrain have since shifted in later reporting, which is itself a sign of how unsettled the plan still is internally.

What's changed is ownership. McLaren's car-building arm was bought in December 2024 by CYVN Holdings, an Abu Dhabi state-backed investment vehicle that also holds a major stake in Chinese EV maker NIO. Bloomberg reported previously, citing people familiar with the matter, that CYVN was preparing to merge McLaren with Forseven, a UK-based EV startup with an existing technology agreement with NIO — a tie-up explicitly framed around getting McLaren into SUVs and high-end sedans as part of a wider turnaround plan. Under that reported structure, former Jaguar Land Rover executive Nick Collins — the same Collins now talking publicly about "more than two seats" — would lead the combined entity, while current McLaren Automotive CEO Michael Leiters stays focused on the core supercar brand.

It's worth stressing that the Forseven tie-up itself was reported, not confirmed by McLaren or CYVN at the time, and neither company has said definitively that the P47 is the product of that specific arrangement. But the throughline is hard to miss: an Abu Dhabi-owned McLaren, an EV-focused UK sister company, and now a leaked internal codename for a non-supercar body style, all pointing at the same multi-year push to get McLaren revenue beyond a product line that, by the company's own admission, hasn't been consistently profitable.

Why the UAE Angle Matters Here

This isn't just a story about a British carmaker's product roadmap — it's increasingly a UAE ownership story. CYVN Holdings is Abu Dhabi state-linked capital, and McLaren already has a disproportionate relationship with this market: the brand's Dubai and Abu Dhabi showrooms serve a UAE customer base that, per Gulf News reporting, has at times accounted for roughly half of the Middle East's share of McLaren's global sales, even as the brand culled slower-selling entry models like the $150,000 540C for lack of demand elsewhere. If an SUV does arrive in 2028, the Gulf — not Europe or the US — is plausibly where McLaren expects to sell a meaningful chunk of them, given how dominant SUVs and crossovers already are in the region's luxury segment.

What to Watch For

Nothing here is official. McLaren has not confirmed the P47 name, the 2028 date, the hybrid V8, the five-seat layout, or the Forseven connection on the record — all of it traces back to dealer-meeting sourcing and people-familiar-with-the-matter reporting relayed through Automotive News and Bloomberg. Treat it the way you'd treat any pre-reveal auto-industry leak: directionally plausible, given the ownership change and Collins' own public comments, but not something to bank on until McLaren puts out a press release or a camouflaged prototype shows up on a test track.

For now, the clearest signal is the money and the ownership structure behind it. A sovereign-backed owner with an EV-industry stake, a struggling-but-storied brand, and a reported five-seat non-supercar already in development all point toward McLaren looking less like a pure supercar boutique by the end of the decade — whether or not "P47" ends up being the name on the badge.