"Constructor may be in a long list of decent real time strategy titles coming out this year, but it holds a unique style of game play that I would recommend above many other highly publicized games of the same genre. The humor in this game is actually funny. The style and content are odd and interesting, setting it apart from many games available. If you like real-time strategy builder games, you are going to love Constructor. One thing is for certain: it has the best slogan I have ever heard for a game: "It's your city. Deal with it!"" ~James Fudge, Gamezilla
Source: Soft World Magazine, January 1998 (#105) || Internet Archive; NashG
A sharp epiphany: I love constructors. Legos, other things, and especially room boxes? I've always wanted to collect something like this and now I'm so happy!
Yes, of course, I missed a little and mixed up the flashlights, BUT I THINK IT'S BETTER THIS WAY
Is there any reason that McLaren don't make their own engines, I think I've seen before that it's because of cost, but they've been in the sport for a long time so I would think at some point they'd begin to produce their own engines instead? Every other top team does their own(and Aston Martin is moving to Honda in 2026 as well) making them the only top 5 team to not make their own engines during 2026, and with smaller teams it's understandable but I just find it odd for McLaren.
This is a good question. I think the most helpful way to illuminate the answer is to go through a quick version of McLaren's history, compared to when the current engine-building teams started doing their own engines. Timeline under the "Keep Reading".
(1950) - Ferrari started building its own engine. This was before not building one's own engine for own's own chassis was a meaningful option. Ferrari had three good reasons not to consider buying in an engine: post-war austerity was still a thing, it had a point to prove to Lancia from whom it had recently separated - and Ferrari considered the engine to be the heart of the car, thus the heart of the team's identity. No other team in existence in 2025 gave itself the latter reason to build its own F1 engine.
(1954) - Mercedes spends 2 years in F1, building everything itself (as it had pre-war), dominated everything in the Grand Prix world, then left in the wake of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Again, buying an engine in was not a meaningful option, but in this case it was more to do with its ambitions to dominate immediately, rather than Ferrari's "buying in a different engine would have probably been more hassle".
1966 - McLaren entered F1. This was the year before the Ford DFV entered F1. This was the engine that made not building one's own engine not only viable, but a credible path to the Constructor's World Championship title.
Even though Bruce McLaren knew that Lotus had an exclusive on the engine in its debut year (1967), he knew Ford had decided that it would be openly and broadly available after that, for considerably less than the likes of Ferrari paid to develop their own engine. Not having the baggage of an existing commitment to produce its own engine, McLaren chose to use the Ford DFV for most of its early F1 adventures (there were some races where it used Serenissima and BRM engines instead).
1981 - Ron Dennis bought McLaren and decided to beef up the operation. However, McLaren wasn't exactly rich at this point (lack of money was why the team had been sold…) so making its own supply wasn't really an option. However, the engine situation wasn't exactly a rush because the Ford DFV's 1981 iteration was still capable in the midfield context McLaren had found itself. Instead, Ron carefully negotiated for a works arrangement with a manufacturer who he believed would conquer the turbo era - Porsche.
Works agreements were just starting to become a thing among the British teams, primarily because of doubts about whether Ford could be as successful with turbos as it had been with naturally-aspirated engines (the Ford DFV being the naturally-aspirated engine par excellence). Turbos were far more expensive than naturally-aspirated ones, since the science was more complex. This brought the larger-budgeted manufacturers into play - the Renaults, TAG Porsches and Ferraris of the world. (Ford is a huge company who could have outspent all at this point had it chosen, but was always interested in making their motorsport efforts look affordable. That was as much a part of their image as luxury is intended to be for Ferrari and Aston Martin).
However, these luxury manufacturers also wanted a certain air of unattainability, which could not happen if everyone picked the same luxury manufacturer. So engine manufacturers looked to commit to a single team, one it could be confident would sustain itself through intense competition for several seasons, and recoup its upfront investment over a fairly long contract. If the Ford DFV had been a PC, the turbo engines were already looking like they would be consoles - walled garden included.
So for a few years in the mid-1980s, McLaren were strongly allied with Porsche. And then…
1987 - TAG Porsche decided it wanted out of F1. Sportscar racing had become big, without yet being as expensive as F1, and Porsche wanted to concentrate on the cheaper (but also growing) series. Ron Dennis might have considered building his own engine for half a second - by now, McLaren was rich and secure enough to think about it - but an idea crossed his desk that was far more compelling.
McLaren joined forces with Honda, to produce the most one-sided season ever. (Even 2023 wasn't quite as one-sided. Red Bull lost Singapore on pace. McLaren lost the 1988 Italian Grand Prix only because both cars broke down from the lead). This was, at least at first, the best possible deal Ron Dennis could have done.
1993 - Honda's presence ended as the recession of 1991 took hold. Without other options, Ron Dennis selected Ford, then Peugeot, but neither felt like a long-term option for his ambitions. He was looking for another works supplier. With medium-term doubt about what engines were going to look like, it would have been a bad time to go into the engine creation business. Instead, McLaren chose to ally with Mercedes in 1995. Except for its legendary McLaren F1 GTR car (that eventually won Le Mans), where it used a BMW engine.
(2010) - Mercedes re-entered F1. Two reasons to build its own engine: its own historical precedent, and a need to retrench a bunch of engine experts laid off in the 2008 recession to avoid having to make them redundant. Unlike McLaren in 2020, Mercedes had enough internal corporate financial backing to pull this off.
2014 - Ron Dennis took over McLaren again just as F1 was entering a mini-recession (not so much the consequence of wider market forces this time, more to do with objections to F1's ethics - Bahrain 2012 was still fresh in executives' memories - and decreasing confidence in the solvency of F1 teams, half of whom either actually or nearly went bankrupt in 2014 and early 2015). McLaren was absolutely not in a position to financially consider building the extremely expensive eco-turbos itself, so it was a search for another works supplier. Honda was the only team willing to accept McLaren at short notice, for a number of reasons. It was an unhappy union.
However, the only alternative was to share a supplier with at least one other team - something to which Ron Dennis was very much opposed for philosophical reasons (mostly concerned about whether defeating the supplier would be allowed).
(2016) - Lotus renamed itself to Renault due to the road company buying it. The alternative was for the team to cease to exist. Renault brought in its own vision. This included building its own engines - partly due to history and partly philosophy. It had, at this point, a lot more money to throw at an engine-building project than McLaren.
2018 - McLaren dumped Honda when it could, trading it in for a better version - Renault. Still too expensive to make its own ecoturbo, still no other manufacturers interested in joining, so a shared supplier was the only possible route.
2022 - McLaren had to change supplier, this time because Renault wanted to focus on its own team. By this point, Mercedes had shown it could accept other teams beating it with good grace (notably at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, where Perez and Racing Point defeated Russell's Mercedes, with both giving excellent perofrmances). This reassured McLaren that a deal with Mercedes was as good as a works arrangement.
McLaren has little reason to seek making its own engine, given its current context. If matters were different and it could afford to do so, McLaren would consider making its own engine. However, each time McLaren has had to seriously consider anything other than the supplier it currently has, there's always been an arrangement that worked better for it.
