British car company McLaren has historically built supercars, machines built more for the racetrack than the road, with pricetags of hundreds of thousands of dollars to match. But with the launch of the new McLaren 570S, it's looking to change that. The upcoming 570S is the first of the manufacturer's Sports Series range, and is set to compete with cars such as the Audi R8 and Porsche 911 Turbo. The 570S still isn't exactly cheap, but at an estimated $180,000, it's set to be by far the cheapest model McLaren has ever sold.

The car was first shown off to press behind closed doors back in January. McLaren reportedly banned photos of the car at the event, but some have surfaced, showing sleek bodywork, wasp-ish headlights, and the kind of gullwing doors that make the "budget" supercar look like its bigger brother, the legendary McLaren F1. Under the hood, it's got a V8 engine that means its 2,800-pound, carbon fiber body has a sprint time of 3.2 seconds — a full second faster, Bloomberg Business notes, than the Porsche 911 S.

McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt says that he expects double-digit growth for the company as the new, more affordable model makes McLaren an option to the rich, as well as the super-rich. We'll get to see more at this week's New York International Auto Show when the 570S is officially unveiled, but if you can't wait, a handful of low-resolution pictures shared by Bloomberg and French newspaper Le Figaro show the entry-level supercar in orange and black.

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