Mad Mike to turn McLaren P1 GTR into drift car

New Zealand drift star Mad Mike is no stranger to an outlandish project, which in the past have included an array of hotted-up Mazdas and even a Lamborghini Huracan. Now he has announced what could be his wildest endeavour yet, a McLaren P1 GTR drift car.

Dubbed ‘MADMAC’, the project is a joint effort between the Kiwi driver, supercar customisation specialist Lanzante, and luxury vehicle dealership O’Gara Coach, who plan to debut the finished product at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Much of the preparation work has already been completed by Lanzante in the United Kingdom, but the hypercar has now arrived at Mike’s ‘Mad Lab’ at Hampton Downs where it will undergo the rest of its transformation.

“The idea for the project came about after meeting Mike at Goodwood last year,” said Dean Lanzante.

“He visited our stand, saw what we had on display and we started to explore what was possible. We like to think that we (Lanzante) build some of the most extreme cars, but Mike saw this as a challenge to take things up a level or two.”

The P1 GTR in question is just one of 58 ever made and is one of McLaren’s ultimate track-focused models based on the road-going variant. With that, you’ll find an uprated twin-turbocharged V8 hybrid drivetrain under the bonnet making 735kW, an increase of 62kW over the standard car, which is good enough to accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in a touch over 2.8 seconds.

Although it’s got plenty of go, Mad Mike won’t be gunning for any speed records in this thing as he will instead opt to kick the car sideways in his usual fashion. Just how the Kiwi plans to make it do so remains a mystery.

“Lanzante has a reputation for creating some incredible cars,” said Mike. “Being a proud Kiwi, I’m inspired to push this McLaren project to the absolute limit, and then take it around the world… sideways.”

Mad Mike’s McLaren P1 GTR ‘MADMAC’ drift car will make its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024, which runs from July 11 to 14.