Column 011｜マクラーレンにcomfortableは必要か？——ロゴは移せる。欲望は移せない。｜Does a McLaren Have to Be Comfortable?
A garage of highlights, and very little driving A friend who restores cars built my 1969 CORVETTE, piecing it together with donor parts. JAGUAR F-TYPE. RR Phantom. L
A garage of highlights, and very little driving
A friend who restores cars built my 1969 CORVETTE, piecing it together with donor parts. JAGUAR F-TYPE. RR Phantom. Lamborghini. These days, a CHEVROLET Corvette fully customised with my own paintwork and aftermarket parts, and a Mercedes-AMG G-Class.
Those are the highlights of my car history. Yet lately I barely drive—or even ride in—them.
It has acquired the air of a papa-katsu girl whose Dior bag travels by train to a host club, or an ageing nouveau-riche bloke in Louis Vuitton monogram and head-to-toe DIESEL, dressed young for an outlet mall. Even the explanation feels lonely. Wabi-sabi.
In a poisonous mood, I might introduce papa-katsu girls overseas as “Japan’s amateur prostitutes.” That is my provocation, not an accurate definition of everyone using that label: it does not establish whether any sexual transaction occurred. These are figures in my imagination.
Does a McLaren have to be comfortable?
Then there is the news of a McLaren SUV.
Must a McLaren fit comfortably into everyday life? I am not asking only about soft seats or room for luggage. I am asking what happens when a car built around extraordinary driving is expected to become an accommodating everyday companion.
Er…
Really…
Do you want that?
I do not dislike SUVs as a category. I used to like Porsche, but dislike its SUVs: their design, and the shallowness I have associated with some owners I encountered. In my Japanese experience, Alfa Romeo and Audi owners have also irritated me.
That is a confession of prejudice, not research into owners’ personalities. A car cannot settle who someone is. But cars, like clothes, accumulate human associations.
Japanese car enthusiasts may recognise the scene. So may luxury-fashion people—excluding the ugly bores who only talk, as my less charitable self would put it. I suspect agreement; I cannot claim it.
An older Mercedes. A Toyota Alphard that, in my imagination, jumps between yakuza and low-income stereotypes. Gang bosses, the Century, and borrowed imperial prestige. Stretch limousines illegally parked in Roppongi. A red BMW saloon. A Prius I am tempted to call the elderly reckless driver’s favourite.
These are my mental advertising pictures, not demographic findings, crime statistics or verified explanations of why gang members choose a car.
My longstanding proposition is that status and achievement cannot simply be slid from one category into another. To put it provocatively: has a celebrity ever become a successful politician?
Of course I am not asserting that none has. Success needs a definition. My question is whether transferring fame also transfers the ability to govern.
Put a fast car’s reputation on a larger car’s price tag. What, exactly, has that proved?
My dislike and the company’s sales are different accounts
If I substitute my insults for market research, I become the shallow one. The shared reference below gives Porsche’s delivery evidence. It records volume, not model profitability.
Toyo Keizai reports McLaren’s SUV plan. The supplied photographs show an Artura, not the SUV’s final design. “Do you want that?” is my reaction to the strategic idea, not a road test of an unseen finished vehicle.
I do not want one is different from nobody wants one. An investor has to live with that distinction.
Speed—or the person who can afford speed?
Someone buys steering feel. Someone buys room for family and luggage. Someone wants both. Someone buys a badge and a price bracket readable at a glance. This is my hypothesis about overlapping motives, not an exhaustive consumer survey.
My own unused cars cannot escape the question. Shape, memory and the satisfaction of customising them survive while parked. I value that. But the man mocking an underused handbag also owns underused cars. Wabi-sabi sends me an invoice too.
An SUV could bring the brand into a life that could not accommodate its sports cars. Is that a translation of the same spirit into another use, or a different product carrying a famous name?
A brand resembles currency, not a printing press
A brand persuades someone to pay for something before experiencing it. Past work stands behind that confidence. Category expansion borrows against it; the new product has to repay the loan through experience.
Dilution is not simply more units. It is buyers losing sight of why the premium exists. Conversely, everyday usefulness can strengthen a brand if the reason to choose it remains clear. Scarcity alone would turn every unsold car into a treasure.
A large market explains why to enter. It does not explain why this entrant wins. A competitor’s success suggests a hypothesis, not a guaranteed return.
Look beneath the badge
I would examine incremental customers rather than transfers from existing models; actual selling prices rather than list prices; cancellations, inventory and incentives rather than announcements alone; and cash recovery after development, equipment and warranty costs rather than deliveries alone.
Repeat purchases, residual values, quality and customer experience should be read together. Residuals also depend on used-market supply and financing conditions, so they are not a standalone brand score.
A driver buys an experience. A shareholder buys a claim on future earnings and cash at a price that already contains expectations. A beloved product can be an overpriced investment. A disliked product can generate more cash than expected.
Nor should a McLaren story become a discussion of “McLaren shares” without verifying an actual investable security. Automotive operations, racing operations, owners and listed related companies are different entities. This is a framework, not a recommendation.
Even the customer I dislike remains a customer
Companies do not exist only to satisfy my taste. Buyers whose style annoys me still create demand. A strategy I find aesthetically disappointing might sustain the business.
But I will not applaud automatically. Where does expansion end and indiscriminate badge application begin? Does entering everyday life finance the next expression of the brand—or consume the accumulated name?
I cannot sentence an unfinished SUV to failure. My counterevidence is straightforward: distinctive appeal, buyers choosing without discounts, and a return on invested capital. If those appear, my dislike may survive while my business assessment must change.
A logo can move to another body. Desire cannot simply be transferred with it.
My garage contains cars I do not drive. A boardroom contains a future not yet sold.
Ownership alone makes neither move.
