Meet some of McLaren's Yorkshire workforce making supercar parts for a living

Claire, from Rotherham, works as a team leader at The McLaren Composite Technology Centre in South Yorkshire.

A production facility for McLaren Automotive, it is one of the factories bringing to life some of the most luxurious road supercars.

Although the vehicles are assembled in a state-of-the-art factory in Surrey, people who work at the plant on the outskirts of Sheffield and Rotherham play their part in the vital role of building the cars’ carbon fibre chassis – essentially its foundations.

“When I see one of those cars on the road, I can say I was part of making that supercar,” 31-year-old Claire says. “And it’s a nice feeling.”

It’s four years on Monday since the South Yorkshire facility opened its doors, launched jointly by the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Crown Prince of Bahrain.

Some of its staff are featuring in a documentary to be aired for the first time tonight. We Make Supercars, part of the BBC’s We Are England series, explores what it takes to build a supercar through the people who make them.

McLaren, a brand famous for Formula 1, began producing road supercars in 2011.

Carbon fibre has long been part of its DNA, the company having first introduced the material into Formula 1 in the early 1980s.

Given the material’s lightweight and strength characteristics, the firm hasn’t produced a road car without it since.

The film follows a number of McLaren’s staff across various stages of their careers, from to Shihui, the coding master behind the McLaren interfaces to Holly, an ambassador and engineer who arrives at schools in a supercar giving talks in the hope of inspiring the next generation.

Viewers will also meet Andy, now a department head, who has been with the company since it first embarked on its journey to making supercars fit for the road and not just the racing track.

Two brothers from Sheffield, Harrison Vinall and older sibling Sam, also feature. They are both passionate about the cars they make and the significance of having the McLaren facility in their hometown.

“I hope the programme shows just how amazing the work we do here really is,” 22-year-old Harrison says.

“Sheffield has been making steel ever since the war,” he is heard saying on the film. “We’ve gone from making the best steel to the best chassis in the world.”

Harrison left school at 16 and undertook an apprenticeship with a composites firm. By 18, he had joined his brother working for McLaren.

His role these days is as a quality technician. It means auditing the products made at the plant to ensure the chassis are of the best quality for assembling into cars at the McLaren Production Centre in Woking.

“We’re always striving for bigger and better. And as part of the quality team, our job is to try for increased quality even if people think it can’t be improved,” he says.

"In our eyes, there’s no such thing as the perfect part, it can always get better.

"That infinitely long chase of striving for higher standards and better quality is probably the hardest challenge of my job.”

His brother Sam works as a process engineer at the site. “We have a great relationship me and my brother,” Harrison reflects.

“Sometimes the most agitated we get with each other can be to do with our interactions at work, if we’re pestering each other for something.

"The beauty of it though is that we can have almost like a shorthand with each other.

"We don’t necessarily feel we have to be as formal with each other as we might be with other colleagues, which is nice.”

Claire, who previously worked for a company making clutches for cars and tractors, talks of a family atmosphere among the centre’s staff more generally.

It’s one of the reasons she intends to remain with McLaren for the rest of her career. "I’ve put the effort in and it's being recognised," she says on the show.

"I think previous companies I’ve worked for, I’ve never really felt like a valued member of the team.

"Here, it’s like family really. I can safely say, if I keep going the way I am, I’ll finish out my career with McLaren.”

Yorkshire-based Charlotte Cawthorne is at the start of hers.

It was somewhat inevitable the 22-year-old would end up working with cars, despite her first job being in childcare.

Weekends for Charlotte and her family often involve drag racing at Santa Pod raceway.

“As a child, I’d always be in the garage or doing something with my dad,” the apprentice maintenance technician says on screen. “From being about three months old I’ve been going to car shows and racing.”

Like Charlotte, Harrison has always been “what you would call a petrol head”.

"I’ve always loved cars so it felt like a bit of a childhood dream to work for a supercar company,” he says.

"I’ve been here about four years and occasionally I do forget how special it is. But then you get reminded, seeing one of our cars out the road. It reminds you of that childhood dream that you're living.”

We Make Supercars is due to air at 7.30pm tonight, November 11 on BBC One North West, East Yorkshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and will then be available nationwide on BBC iPlayer.