Cars usually don’t make a great ride better. At best, they’re a distraction; At worst, a threat to your life. But some cars certainly do have their charms. Some of the world’s most talented engineers work to make four-wheeled machines lighter, faster, and more powerful. Every now and again, those boffins turn their focus to machines with two wheels.
When those minds align with the brightest engineers on the cycling side of things, the results can be wonderful. Or, they can be thinly veneered marketing mashups – like a new shade of paint and an extra logo emblazoned on the top tube.
Whether it’s a genuine meeting of the engineering minds or little more than a branding collab, the output can raise the performance – or at least the appeal – of cycling to new heights. Here are a few of our favs from the past decade and change.
McLaren and Specialized
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When it comes to racing success, one automotive and cycling mashup was particularly fruitful: Specialized and McLaren. The first sweet offspring from California-based Specialized and McLaren’s Woking-based gurus was 2011’s McLaren Venge.
The initial idea was to tap into the advanced aerodynamics and composites work done by McLaren’s storied Formula One background to create a lighter, stiffer, more aerodynamic frame. The resulting carbon fiber structure weighed 950 grams (2.1 lbs) or 2.07kg (4.5 lbs) including fork, seatpost and cranks. That’s despite a claimed 23-watt aerodynamic savings at 28mph (45km/h) over the then-current Tarmac SL3.
It’s always difficult to chart those savings in real life, but you need look no further than its first race. At its debut at the 2011 Milano-San Remo (opens in new tab), HTC-Highroad’s Matt Goss brought the new McLaren Venge its first win. Three weeks later, HTC’s Mark Cavendish got his first win on the bike at the 2011 Scheldeprijs (opens in new tab) and would later ride that Venge on his was to becoming the UCI World Champion. (opens in new tab)
Specialized and McLaren would team up on multiple products over the years, including several aero-focused helmets and subsequent bikes like the S-Works McLaren Tarmac but that initial Venge still holds the high-water mark for these sorts of collaborations.
Aston Martin One-77
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In 2009, Aston Martin revealed a…