Interview: 8 Questions With McLaren X-1 Supercar Designer Hong Yeo

Hong Yeo was put in a situation that was as rare and unique as the car you see above. At the age of 34, straight out of school at the World College of Art in London, Yeo was tasked with building a one-off supercar for a client who came to McLaren wanting to build his own bespoke vehicle. Lucky for him, the client knew exactly what he wanted: a car that a superhero would drive on his off hours to the opera. Simple, right? We had the chance to talk to Yeo at the Quail, where McLaren unveiled the X-1 and find all the details of how the project came to be and what the experience was like. Here are our 8 Questions With McLaren X-1 Supercar Designer Hong Yeo.

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The client wanted to build a very bespoke vehicle based on the 12C chassis. Among a few other supercars, he owns the 12 C, and he basically said he wanted the next level, something that was beyond the current supercar. He told us, "forget whatever you know about supercars. Create a supercar that you can take to the opera, and just imagine what a superhero would drive in his off hours to get to a fine restaurant in his regular social life. He came up with a list of cars that he likes and a list of objects that he likes and wanted to be reflected in the car and they were very much art deco. The time period was all over, but it was a distinct style that he wanted.

He had the Facel Vega, the 500K, the Talbot-Lagos, and even the Citroen SM. So, from that, we established a theme, and there was a global competition between 5 different design studios from all over the world competed for it, and fortunately for us, the internal studio won the competition. The biggest challenge that we had with this project was that the cars he like were all with classical elements and timeless values. They all had front-engine, rear-wheel drive proportions. So, when we imagined these cars, you have in your head this distincitive proportion. But, it's never been done in a mid-engined supercar form.

So, trying to find that balance was a challenge and took days and days of refining the proportions to make it look right. If you raise the rear chrome bit even by five mill, it looks really rear heavy. If you raise the front five mill, it looks really front heavy, so finding that right balance. Because, it's almost the exact oppostive of a classical car. Classic cars are meant to look heavy and they are, but extracting that and using it into supercar form was difficult. Once we established that, the next challenge was to put it into a package, and as you see, the 12C is already packed at the absolute limit. Trying to change that was hard. However, the rolling chassis gave us the flexibility to design the body around it. If you look at the old days, coachbuilders just used to have a rolling chassis, and the artisans crafted the sheet metal above it. It's in that sense that you could create a whole different car based on that chassis.

Because we're using a rolling chassis and a carbon body, you could actually do one-off vehicles. If it's like the old days when you have to have tooling, you wouldn't necessarily be able to produce these forms or shapes. But because we are using carbon technology and a very flexible, usable chassis, we can create a whole different car.

The pontoon fenders are one of the features that the client really wanted. We didn't really know how it would react aerodynamically. One of the unique things about working for McLaren is that with normal car companies you just have designers and engineers. At McLaren, we also have aerodynamacists, and they're really the ones who can drive some of the shape and engineering behind the cars. We did a lot of CFT model testing, and it proved to be very efficient. And when we tested it in real life, it was much more stable than the 12C.

He's been very involved since day one of the design process, and I see a very big future in that. People will eventually be able to create their own cars and be a part of the process. He was extremely involved in the project. He drove the styling, and he knew exactly what he wanted. We were executing things that he wanted. We're fortunate to have a client like that. Normally, they are unreliable in the sense that they change their minds often.

Frank Stephenson hired me right out of college and this is the first project that I've been involved in with them. I went to the World College of Art in London. It's very rare that any designer gets to design a dream car or even a supercar, especially with so much freedom. It's unheard of, and that's the uniqueness of McLaren. They give us that much flexibility to do what we want to do.

Everyone at McLaren shares the same passion. We get to design day in and day out for people that really love cars. That creates this big, positive energy. Everybody knows everyone very well and they can trust a design to anyone with that passion. That's why he entrusted me with this.

This car is really unique. I think the chrome lines are what I first laid out. You can see the side line, the mark that I hope to be some sort of a signature as I continue. It's a car where it's made up by the details. When you see press shots of it, it's very different than when you see it in person. That's what makes a difference. All the chrome bits on this car are machined out of solid billet aluminum and dipped in nickel. You don't get to do that on modern-day cars anymore, because of costs. Technology has gotten to the point that you can mimic it. On this car, everything is genuine, and that's something I really wanted to communicate. You can still build a car with genuine materials. Being that this is unique and my first car, there are a lot of other elements that were in play.