More cars should have names like Albert.
McLaren
Before the McLaren Speedtail made its full production debut and the brand showed itself a prototype named Albert that was a throwback to the original McLaren F1 development cars. The Albert prototype had the close-to-production body of the Speedtail, but an attached 720S front and a wild camouflage film with a lined motif that represented the airflow on the car. The Speedtail is nearing the end of production, and McLaren Beverly Hills unveiled a one-off version of the hypercar, aka Albert, that pays tribute to the prototype.
While the production of the Albert Speedtail has a lined paint job very similar to the prototype, it’s not a camouflage film – what you’re seeing here is an actual paint job that took 12 weeks to complete. McLaren says it is one of the most complex paint jobs the company has ever done. Albert was built with an exposed glossy carbon fiber body while the colors were chosen for the paint job Magnesium Silver, the color that the F1 road car sported on its debut in 1992, and Ueno Gray, which was seen on the F1 GTR of the 1995 Le Mans won.
The lines represent the airflow along the car.
McLaren
Before a paint job could even be done, McLaren’s Special Operations department had to do a lot of testing. The team created a series of test boards to check the feasibility of the design and also worked digitally on renderings to perfect it. These renderings were then printed out in full size and used by two specialists to cover the strip paint on the real panels. The masking process took two weeks and had to be done with the car body panels and wheels mounted to make sure all the lines matched perfectly. In total, over a mile of tape was used to complete the design.
Then the car had to be painted, which took six weeks. To do this, the car had to be dismantled again so that the MSO team could get the perfect finish. The two paint colors fade into one another, with the Ueno gray mostly forming the front and the magnesium silver forming the rear. McLaren says that after the first paint run, the body panels were reassembled to make sure everything was perfectly aligned before the final clear coat was applied. Then it took another four weeks for everything to dry and the rest of the car to be fully assembled.
The thin lines aren’t painted – they’re exposed carbon fiber.
McLaren
The end result is pretty spectacular. The strips are not painted – since they were masked as part of the design prepaint, they are actually the original visual carbon fiber finish of the body panels. The contrast between the super glitzy paint colors and the 1K carbon finish is incredible and gives Albert a look that is different from any other hypercar I’ve seen before – and I’ve seen a lot of interesting carbon finishes.
In addition to the paintwork, Albert has a number of other details that distinguish him from “normal” Speedtails. The carbon fiber door sill is marked with darker lettering that says “MVY02-BP23 Hybrid Prototype”, a reference to the code name for the original Albert prototype. The pedals are in gold based on the F1 and the interior is two-tone in orange and black.
Albert is one of the last Speedtails to be built in the 106-unit production of the car. With the Speedtail already starting at over $ 2 million, it’s likely costing its unknown owner – apparently a top customer of the Beverly Hills retailer – closer to $ 3 million, if not more. If you live in the Los Angeles area, you can meet Albert at the Sunset GT Cars and Coffee Event on Sunday, August 8th.
Continue reading: Bugatti almost stopped painting this Divo ‘Lady Bug’ because it was so complicated
McLaren Speedtail Albert has a stunning custom paint job
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