The Man Behind McLaren: On India's Deepening Tryst With Supercars

We speak to Infinity Cars’ Lalit Choudhary on bringing the legendary British marque to India, and the state of supercar ownership moving into 2023

Long before McLaren's dealership could open its doors in Mumbai in November, 2022, a handful of imports had already been signed off. The most high-profile among them was that of film producer Bhushan Kumar's Rs 4.7 crore-gift to actor Kartik Aaryan - the very first McLaren GT in India.

The man spearheading this push towards expanding India's supercar presence was no novice. As one half of the husband-wife duo heading Infinity Cars Pvt. Ltd., exLehman Brothers banker, Lalit Choudhary's equanimous demeanour comes with a titanic, decade-long portfolio of work with high-end automobiles.

"When we started in 2006, the market was in its infancy and the thought was to represent some of the world's top marques and introduce the culture of high-end, premium luxury cars to the country. I was relocating from Hong Kong with my wife, Pooja. So, we had already seen the proliferation of high-end cars in the city and thought, why not do something along those lines in India?" he recalls.

Seizing an opportunity to partner with BMW while guiding the banking firm's entry into the country, the Choudharys made incredible headway with the German carmaker, the first of many impressive marques on their roster today. McLaren, however, poses a unique challenge as a relatively younger company - McLaren Cars is under forty, and McLaren Automotive, the actively operating part of the company, is not even in its teens - compared to the centuries-old marques in the segment.