McLaren Automotive has reached a significant milestone in its short history with a Ceramic Grey 570S becoming the 10,000th car produced at the McLaren Production Centre in Woking since production began in July 2011.

CEO Mike Flewitt commented, “The fact that it took us 42 months to build our 5000th car and just 22 months to build the next 5000 speaks volumes about the pace of development of the company. Much of that development is thanks to the introduction of the Sports Series family of cars and it’s therefore fitting that the 10,000th car is a McLaren 570S”.

The Sports Series comprising the 540C, 570S and 570GT launch in early 2016 led to the introduction of a second shift at the factory increasing the team to 750 people and doubling production capacity from 10 cars a day to 20. Since then around 2000 Sports Series models have been built.

The company says at the same time sales growth has also been exponential with sales in 2016 on target to almost double year-on-year, from 1654 in 2015 to more than 3000 cars, with 90% of these being exported.

The 10,000th car, in its distinctive colour selected from McLaren Special Operations ‘Defined’ palette, isn’t going to a customer, however. Instead it will take its place in history as part of McLaren’s Heritage Collection.