The first rule of Project Kilo is that you don’t talk about Project Kilo. Seriously, little is known about McLaren’s new iteration of their 650S except that it was manufactured by their Special Operations division, it’s a bespoke item — which means it’s a made-to-order, fully customized vehicle, likely built for and bought by a single buyer — and it was constructed with as much carbon fiber as one might fit inside a single car.
All the (official) info currently available on this radical looking ride originates from a Facebook-posted press release. It begins,
“This very special MSO 650S, codenamed ‘Project Kilo’, is one of the most personalised, bespoke projects that MSO have undertaken to date.”
They go on to list the many items on the car that were constructed from carbon fiber, which would include the roof, the diffuser, the vent bezels, the bespoke branded sill panels and the instrument cluster bezel with integrated shift lights.
Other non-composite notables include aluminum water and oil filler caps; a 24-carat, gold-plated exhaust windshield; titanium wheel nuts; customized keys; a personalized paint job — consisting of a few eye-popping accents of McLaren Orange — and a personal dedication plate located on the driver’s side door.
It also sports a small Kiwi on the engine cover — the bird, not the fruit — which just so happens to be a reference to New Zealand, where the founder, Bruce McLaren, was born.
Are Bruce’s kids such fans of carbon fiber that they might have commissioned and constructed a fully customized car in honor of their father, using the composite material in as many facets as humanly fathomable? Or was this bad boy built for somebody else?
Nobody seems to know. (Or maybe they were told and then had to be killed.)
In an online article, Alexander Stoklosa of Car and Driver claims to have come close to locating the true originator, stating, “We tracked down a months-old thread on a McLaren forum in which a member describes the car and the ordering process in detail.”
Unfortunately Stoklosa doesn’t relay any of that information, nor does he provide a link to the source. (Nor do we know if he’s been contacted — i.e. threatened — by any MSO operatives or if the thread in question has since been redacted.)
Either way, what we do know about McLaren’s new 650S is that, with a name like Project Kilo, there was an obvious emphasis placed on weight. It had to be light. And for that, they turned to carbon fiber.
We couldn’t be happier. (Or more afraid.)
For more on Project Kilo, [THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN REDACTED FOR REASONS UNSPECIFIED].
[Source: McLaren’s Facebook, Car and Driver]