This teaser sketch of McLaren's upcoming entry-level sports coupé, code-named P13 and expected to debut at the Paris motor show in October 2014, is about as official as it gets - it's signed by McLaren design head Frank Stephenson.
Stephenson also confirmed that the 'baby' McLaren will be built on the same MonoCell carbon-fibre chassis (albeit with a slightly shorter wheelbase) as its more upmarket siblings, the MP4-12C and the recently released P1.
Given the horrendous cost of building a mould for a carbon-fibre component the size of a Venter trailer, we'd have been surprised if it didn't.
THE SAME - BUT LESS
It's also been confirmed that McLaren Automotive has further reduced development costs by using a detuned version of the same 3.8-litre biturbo V8, rated at 331kW.
So, what we have here is a 12C/P1 clone with less power, less sophisticated suspension and, we would expect, slightly less 'bespoke' interior trim.
The upside is that, when it goes on sale in 2015, prices are planned to start at about £120 000 (just over R2 million) as opposed to more than £210 000 (R3.6 million) for the MP4-12C and a whopping £886 000 (R15 million) for the P1 - assuming you could buy one, which you can't because all 375 planned examples are already sold.
Production of the P13 is expected to begin as soon as those 375 P1's are finished - probably in the second quarter of 2015 - and Stephenson has promised a roadster version with a hard top, about a year after that.