McLaren Wants Tailors and Dressmakers to Build Cars

Composite materials, together with future Powertrain technology, will save vehicle weight, boost performance and provide more energy-efficient vehicles.

British luxury supercar maker McLaren is hiring for its new £50m innovation and manufacturing facility in Yorkshire in the North of England. Applicants with experience in a variety of sectors from boat-building to the textiles trade and sporting goods industries are urged to apply for jobs, apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships that will help double the workforce at the McLaren Composites Technology Centre  to ~200 when it is in full production next year.

Those skills are required because materials such as carbon fiber start life as a fabric that has to be cut, put into molds before being treated and becoming a hard material. McLaren claims to be a world-leader in innovating lightweight composite materials, a claim that could plausibly challenged by other automakers. (See stories below)

Sometimes racing improves the car breed.

As all automakers argue, composite materials, together with future powertrain technology, will save vehicle weight, boost performance and provide more energy-efficient vehicles. McLaren has been a pioneer with ultra-lightweight, ultra-strong carbon fiber material for decades and builds every car with a carbon fiber chassis, or ‘tub’, at its core.

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