Luxury supercar maker McLaren Automotive and Bowers & Wilkins, the respected high-end audio brand, today announce their strategic long-term multi-year partnership which sees Bowers & Wilkins become McLaren’s Official Audio Partner.

The partnership builds on the established history both brands have together. Since 2015, Bowers & Wilkins has been responsible for the development of the high-performance audio systems found in the marque’s supercars and hypercars. 

One of the world’s most respected audio brands, Bowers & Wilkins is famed for pushing the boundaries of loudspeaker capability, with the goal of revealing as much of the original recording as possible – without ever changing or distorting that sound. This pursuit of perfection, instilled by founder John Bowers, is still evident today.

McLaren’s own unrelenting approach, born of visionary founder Bruce McLaren’s desire to design and build the world’s most exhilarating supercars, shares many parallels with that of Bowers & Wilkins. Both brands’ desire to exceed the limits of what is possible is evident in their respective product ranges.

The partnership is built on firm technical foundations. Bowers & Wilkins has worked closely with McLaren’s design and engineering teams to create and optimise the audio system found in the company’s supercars.

McLaren’s latest supercars feature the very latest speaker technologies which have been developed in Southwater, home to the Bowers & Wilkins research and development team since 2019 and only 30 miles away from the McLaren global HQ.

Since the brands started working together, notable integration landmarks have included the famous yellow Aramid Fibre cones, Rohacell subwoofers, Diamond dome tweeters, dual-opposed subwoofers and recently the proprietary Continuum® cone. All are proven high-performance hi-fi loudspeaker technologies that add to the overall supercar experience.

The successful technical and design collaboration has already been recognised, with two iF design awards for the system integrations of Bowers & Wilkins in both McLaren’s Speedtail and GT models received shortly after their introduction.

The partnership has now expanded beyond traditional automotive applications for drive unit installation. Pioneering advances include subwoofers being integrated into McLaren’s innovative, in-house designed and manufactured McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture carbon fibre monocoque, ensuring a stiff – and therefore inert – mounting surface, which enables better sound.

As part of the new partnership, Bowers & Wilkins branding will appear prominently on McLaren Automotive’s Partner roster and the two companies have pledged to explore exciting new portable and home audio collaborations together.

“McLaren and Bowers & Wilkins were both founded by similarly minded technical visionaries who always pushed the boundaries of what is possible to create innovative products and experiences. We are, therefore, delighted to be announcing our partnership which builds on the award-winning technical collaboration between our two companies and I’m looking forward to exploring what exciting innovations and products our shared values will create next.”
Gareth Dunsmore, Chief Marketing Officer, McLaren Automotive

“We are thrilled to formalise this agreement with McLaren Automotive. We have enjoyed a great relationship through engineering and product development for over six years, but this adds even more to the partnership, and we jointly look forward to sharing more on our future plans soon.”
Dave Sheen, SVP of Licensing and Partnerships, Sound United