For sixteen years, McLaren pushed harder and harder toward faster robotized gearboxes. Then it slammed the brakes and did a complete U-turn. The McL 6GT concept arrives with a genuine manual transmission, the gear lever physically linked to the gearbox itself — the first road-going McLaren to offer this since the legendary F1. A production version is already confirmed for 2028.
It's the mechanism itself that sets this apart from the current “manual revival” trend. Ferrari's 12Cilindri Manuale also hands drivers a lever and a clutch pedal, but underneath, an eight-speed DCT is still doing the work: both controls simply send commands to the electronics through the Manuale By-Wire system. McLaren plays it straighter. According to the reveal, the open shifter mechanism connects directly to the transmission, no electronic middleman involved.
And the analog theme doesn't stop there. The McL 6GT sends power to the rear wheels only and swaps out electric power steering for a hydraulic setup, all built around a carbon-fiber monocoque. A V8 is confirmed, but McLaren is keeping displacement and output under wraps for now. The widely repeated guess of 4.0 liters is exactly that — a guess from Autoblog, not a confirmed spec of the production car.
The name reaches back into Bruce McLaren's own history. The original M6GT from the late 1960s was the company's very first road car project; Bruce himself drove the prototype, and a planned run of 250 units was cut short by his death in 1970. In July 2026, McLaren Special Operations rebuilt the M6GT from scratch, and the brand's official site now carries the line “Legacy. Reborn.”
So here's the telling contrast. Ferrari is trying to electronically fake the feel of old-school mechanics while still leaning on its DCT. McLaren just brought the mechanical link back for real. That doesn't automatically make the McL 6GT faster — if anything, the whole point shifts away from shift times and headline numbers toward what the driver actually does with their hands.
The next thing to watch is purely technical: McLaren still has to reveal the V8's power and displacement, the number of gears, production numbers, and price, and finally lock down the spec of the car that's supposed to reach production in 2028.
