Both McLaren Automotive & its official Smart Tooling partner Atlas Copco have now forged new paths into a pioneeringly data-driven era of luxury supercar manufacturing with high hand-built precision. With Atlas Copco’s smart tools and digital systems already integrated into the McLaren Production Centre (MPC)’s Artura, 750S & GTS production lines, Woking’s latest W1 hypercar will now enjoy the benefits of this unrelenting focus on exacting accuracy right from its very first client production example to be built.
Each particular fixing point’s data on every car is entered automatically into a digital passport totaling over 2,000 entries, with Atlas Copco’s Avantguard advanced error-proofing software recording each fixing before transferring this information to Toolsnet8 for seamless real-time data-readout throughout the MPC. The company’s ALTURE optimisation software then utilizes this same data to predict and identify potential issues even before they occur via trend analysis; with these digital data elements merging to form a digital ledger of the car unlike any other even as it is being built.
The smart tools themselves are not just making more data available to McLaren operatives as they progress their work through the McLaren Production Centre’s build stations; they’re unleashing even more performance potential from the extraordinary design & engineering poured into every McLaren by making unprecedented new levels of manufacturing precision possible. For example, they enable tightly controlled and repeatable torque-angle application when producing the McLaren W1’s incredibly lightweight titanium suspension fasteners, ensuring both critical joint integrity and consistency in the 100-gram weight savings that are a key factor in the hypercar’s astounding driving dynamics.
Meanwhile, McLaren operators utilize the Atlas Copco STRwrench Compact Controller with a 250Nm smartHEAD to assemble the W1’s F1-inspired inboard front suspension according to uncompromisingly high accuracy demands, and the Atlas Copco Tensor ICB-A single-handed tool when working on its revolutionary advanced Rear Active Longtail aerodynamic system. This makes use of bespoke interference pins that allow more compact packaging & tighter tolerances, lowering overall vehicle weight even further; key performant outcomes made possible only by exacting assembly conditions guaranteed by such perfected tooling solutions.
