Legendary Partnerships Throughout Supercar History

While it is true that many supercar manufacturers, design houses, specialist parts makers, and the like are solo entities (in both literal and corporate terms), there have been some cars made over the years that bring together many of these entities to make something truly special. We’re not talking about just a few bits of data shared between the two (or three, or four), we’re meaning when they actually partnered to have both their names represented on one car because it was such a marvel of technology, engineering, or just sheer will that made it happen.

Some of these are pretty apparent, while some have been long lasting and quite famous for it. While we won’t be going into every partnership that has ever happened, we will be focusing on six big ones that have made the supercar and hypercar world just a really nice place to be.

Mercedes-Benz & McLaren

What started out as a Formula One engine supply deal turned into a partnership that, in a way, paved the way for McLaren Automotive to get its feet wet before becoming an actual manufacturer. We are, of course, talking about the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (also known as the Mercedes-McLaren SLR in some parts of the world), the most over the top and ridiculously overengineered grand tourer of all time.

It’s hard to fathom it, but the SLR is now over 20 years old from the first one rolling out of the factory, and it still holds up in terms of looks today. Originally a fully Mercedes car that was designed in house that was meant to bring in the new millennium with a super-GT, the partnership in F1 with McLaren had their dream team rework the whole car, and we do mean an absolute dream team. This was back when Gordon Murray was the head of the design department, and Mercedes quite literally gave him the plans, the engine, and said “make it road ready,” and he took that to heart.

The SLR stands for “Sport Leicht Rennsport,” literally “Sport Light Racing,” and as this is Gordon Murray we’re talking about. He made it as light as possible, giving it ferocious carbon-ceramic brakes, active aerodynamics, and the bragging rights of being the outright fastest automatic transmission vehicle ever made. It took everything that was learned with the McLaren F1, and improved upon it to make an absolute cruise missile for the road that was also extremely comfortable and could cross continents in rather less time than your standard run of the mill Mercedes could cross a single country.

For their part, the Germans did not slouch when it came to the engine. A monster of a 5.4L supercharged V8, it chucked out 617 HP, of which 120 was needed just to spin the supercharger up to speed. It would hit 60 MPH in a hair under 3.4 seconds from a dead stop, and they tuned the exhaust to make sure you could hear each cylinder firing, much like an old propeller-driven fighter plane.

What’s even more impressive is that this partnership, despite some rivalry in Formula One, is still intact today, as they both recently worked on and released the 2023 SLR High Downforce Kit for one super-wealthy owner.

Mercedes-AMG & Pagani

Mercedes does seem to like to partner up with others, and in many cases this is a very good thing. That fact is especially true when you put reliable German power from AMG into Italian hands, who will wrap it in one of the best looking swathes of carbon fiber to touch the road.

When Horatio Pagani left Lamborghini to start working on his own interpretation of a supercar, he had absolutely fanatical levels of perfection he was looking for. Every weave of the carbon fiber had to be perfect. Every surface, every curve had to mean something. His cars also had to have the best sound, the best power, and be reliable. Rumor has it that he then saw the engine in a Mercedes-AMG S600 Coupe, and knew then and there he had to work with Mercedes.

That engine, the 6.0L M120 V12, put out 402 HP and had the beginnings of what would soon become Pagani’s signature howling exhaust note. It was transplanted basically unmodified into the middle of the Pagani Zonda C12, but for the C12-S, Mercedes took it to the workshop and bored it out to 7.1L so it could pump out 542 HP.

For the Zonda Roadster, it was increased to 7.3L making 547 HP. Then it went through the motorsports department and was offered in the Zonda R at an insane 740 HP, at the time the most powerful naturally aspirated engine in the world. That was followed by the Zonda R Revolucion, a very limited, more hardcore, more powerful version of the R that upped the power to 800 HP and straight-piped the exhaust from the factory.

This partnership continued into the Huayra, where it was reworked to become the M158 twin turbo V12 with 730 HP. Multiple variants of the M158 were produced over the lifespan of the Huayra, including some very special ones that were modified by HWA RACELAB to become the M158 HWA AG engines in the Huayra R and R Evo, that put out 888 HP.

The new Utopia will also use the M158 twin-turbo V12, but now upgraded to produce 852 HP and 811 lbs-ft of torque, and for the purists out there, Xtrac worked with both Pagani and Mercedes-AMG to create a manual 7-speed gearbox that is able to handle all that grunt.

McLaren & BMW

We’ve already mentioned the name of this car before, but when McLaren decided to build not just a supercar, but the supercar, they took the best engineers and designers from their Formula One team and told them to get to it.

Headed by Gordon Murray, this veritable dream team came up with the McLaren F1. However, they needed a power unit for it, and with Honda being their engine supplier at the time for their F1 cars, they asked them. However, Honda was working on their own supercar, the NSX, and turned down the invitation to join in on the project. This left Murray in a bit of a bind, so he sent out the precise specifications he needed for the engine, and BMW picked up the challenge. The result is the now legendary BMW S70/2 V12.

The ironic thing is that they only met one of Murray’s requirements, that of the engine being 600mm block length, total weight of 250 kg (551 lbs), and 550 HP, that being the block length. The engine came in at 266 kg (586 lbs), but he didn’t mind that extra 16 kg as BMW had managed to pull 618 HP from the engine, a full 14% more than he had expected.

It was also a masterpiece of an engine by BMW M legend himself Paul Rosche, the man that helped make the M badge come into existence. Aluminum alloy block and heads, DOHC, with variable valve timing which was an all new technology at the time, with 4 valves per cylinder on a chain drive for the camshafts. It used a dry sump lubrication system pulled right from the racetrack and modified for the road, and had a relatively high compression ratio of 11:1. It could also technically rev to nearly 9,000 RPM, but it was set to a rev limit of 7,500 to keep it reliable and more importantly cooler.

It was mated to the final design shape of the F1, a very slippery, aerodynamic shape made entirely out of carbon fiber, which with the extra power from the S70/2, made it the fastest accelerating, and the outright fastest car in the world for nearly a decade. It also was the first road car to surpass 500 hp/ton, coming in at 550 hp/ton, or 0.27 hp per pound. It wasn’t until the Bugatti Veyron that a car was able to beat the McLaren F1 in every aspect on paper, to give you an idea of how advanced and how special the collaboration between BMW and McLaren truly was.

Audi & Porsche

Fans of Audi will smile when they hear the words “B4 platform.” For those not in the know, this was also known as the Audi 80 series from 1991 to 1996, seeing over a million cars built, and the little smile is because there was a very special car that came out of the B4 series: The RS2 Avant.

Wanting to compete against the BMW M Estate cars, Audi wanted to make a hopped up, sport-luxury version of the 80 Avant, what they labelled their estate cars as. Yet, as the E36 M3 was a powerhouse of a car, they decided they needed to bring in the experts of extracting as much power as could be from an already existing platform: Porsche.

While Audi worked the chassis and built parts, Porsche systematically overhauled the engine, the steering, the ride, the suspension, and the brakes. They took the 2.2L turbo inline five and yanked off the KKK turbo, fitting a much larger one on, put on a heavy duty intercooler, reprofiled the camshaft, installed high flow fuel injectors, a much more efficient induction system based off of the 911, and a low-pressure exhaust system. They also worked with BOSCH to create an all new ECU for what was internally coded the Audi P1.

When Porsche delivered the engine, it was able to put out 311 HP and 302 lbs-ft of torque. When paired with the Audi Quattro AWD system through a Porsche-designed 6-speed transmission, the test car was able to go from 0 to 30 MPH in 1.5 seconds, which was as fast as the McLaren F1. Audi was so impressed that they took a badge reserved for their racing cars and applied it to the estate car, becoming the first version of the RS Avant series, the RS 2.

The resulting car came out at a hefty 1,600 kg dry (3,500 lbs), but would hit 60 MPH in under 4.8 seconds, be electronically limited to 163 MPH, and handled like it was glue to rails. Audi was so proud of the lowered, stiffer, but still very comfortable suspension and ferocious brakes that for pretty much the only time in their history, they invited Porsche to use their own wheels on the car. This is how RS 2 Avant’s were able to be spotted back in the mid-1990s, as they would be driving around with Porsche Cup wheels. They also used the wing mirrors of the 964 Turbo, and the brakes were Brembo-Porsche motorsports-grade calipers and discs.

The partnership was so successful that Audi even put “Porsche” under the RS2 badge on the rear of the car, and it did indeed take the BMW M3 Estate to task. It didn’t sell as well as the M cars did, yet still 2,891 cars left the factory between 1994 and 1996, and the RS series of hot Audi cars has only ever improved since, all because Porsche showed them how it was done.

Alfa Romeo & Ferrari

While there is a ton of history between Alfa and Ferrari, stemming all the way back to the 1930s, we’re specifically talking about the modern Alfa Romeo here, the 21st century version.

Still, neither Alfa Romeo nor Ferrari will acknowledge an official partnership happened (cough cough) when the Guilia Quadrifoglio hit the roads in the mid-2010s. They will definitely neither confirm nor deny that the 2.9L twin-turbo V6 in the front of the Guilia Quadrifoglio is in any way, shape, or form a Ferrari F154 twin turbo V8 missing a couple of cylinders. Nope, not at all, no confirmation there, despite the same guy, Gianluca Pivetti, having his name attached to both engines.

They also will not confirm that Ferrari tuned the 2.9L engine to put out 503 HP. They will, however, confirm that the engineers that worked on the engine had a “Ferrari background,” and despite having the prancing horse on their coveralls, they weren’t “officially” Ferrari.

Mhmm. Yeah. Uh-huh.

It’s just sheer coincidence that the 2.9L V6 has the exact same bore and stroke, to the millimeter, as the F154 CB V8 from the 488 and California T, at 86.5mm x 82mm. Just… coincidence, you know?

So, yeah, there was no official partnership. But once we yank the tongue that is firmly planted in our cheek out, pretty much everyone and their grandmother knows that Ferrari helped Alfa Romeo make one hell of a sedan that can rip your face off when you push the accelerator to the floor.

Pininfarina & Ferrari

If you’re talking legendary partnerships, then none are as important to supercars, or critical to the look and design of Italian sportscars, then Carrozzeria Pininfarina and Ferrari S.p.A.

It began, as many things do in Italy, over lunch. Enzo Ferrari and Battista “Pinin” Farina met in a small restaurant in Tortona, a town halfway between Turin and Modena, in 1951. This was agreed upon to be neutral ground as they didn’t want to have influence over each other by being at their headquarters. Farina had been designing for Lancia, Alfa Romeo, even Cadillac by that point.

Enzo proposed a partnership, to which Battista, after listening to all the details, said he would think about it. As the legend goes, as soon as he got in the car with his son to head back to Turin, he turned to him and said “From now on, you’ll be looking after Ferrari and whatever he wants, we’ll do.” The very first car they worked on for Ferrari was the 212 Inter Cabriolet, and the legend only grew from there forward.

For 61 years, the only car that came out of Ferrari that was not exclusively penned by someone from Carrozzeria Pininfarina was the Dino 308 GT4 in 1973. Battista became vice president of Ferrari, and his son Sergio later had a seat on the board of directors. They were even involved in Scuderia Ferrari, the racing team, helping design the shape and look of the F1 cars!

However, after 61 years, the F12Berlinetta was done mostly by a new department inside of Ferrari itself, Centro Stile Ferrari, and was the last car that Pininfarina had any influence on, helping the in-house design studio find their feet. There have been many rumors about the reasoning behind the split, but both companies state that it was amicable, and recently Pininfarina showed off their EV hypercar, so the rumor is that they split so that the design house could move from being exclusively a design house to also being a manufacturer.

Whatever the reason, it was the longest legendary partnership in all of supercars and hypercars, and being honest, it set so many standards of what a partnership needed to be in the high performance world that many partnerships today still use it as a framework of cooperation and equal participation.