A little-known British EV start-up has been quietly recruiting some of the industry’s best-known executives as it gears up to launch an assault on the global luxury car market.

Named Forseven, the three-year-old firm is backed by cash-rich CYVN Holdings, an investment group majority-owned by the Abu Dhabi government. The group also owns Gordon Murray Technologies and recently took control of McLaren Automotive, the British brand's road-car division.

Forseven is clear in stating that it is a “British luxury” brand, working to the principle of “sophistication with purpose”.

What makes this UK start-up especially interesting is that it has managed to attract some of Britain’s biggest names, despite never having revealed any sort of car or concept. These include many who were at JLR during the firm’s purple patch in the early 2010s.

Its CEO is former JLR vehicle programme chief Nick Collins, who was involved in hybridising the Range Rover, as well as overseeing the development of the future electric Jaguars.

In charge of design is Alister Whelan, who held several high-ranking interior design roles at Jaguar between 2007 and 2021 and helped to launch the F-Type and F-Pace.

The firm’s managing director is Mike Flewitt, CEO of McLaren Automotive between June 2012 and December 2021, during which time the company launched landmark models including the P1 and Senna hypercars.

Forseven has also hoovered up several refugees from Lotus, following that firm’s acquisition by Geely. These include Mike Johnstone, former commercial director of the Lotus Group, and Conor Horne, who led Lotus Cars’ operations in the UK and Ireland. Johnstone remains a commercial director with Forseven while Horne assumes the role of director of commercial readiness.

Forseven’s hiring spree continues: the company currently has dozens of high-profile vacancies listed on its website.

Although yet to reveal a car, Autocar understands a deal is being worked on to effectively merge Forseven and McLaren Automotive: the former would gain a well-regarded brand for its first models, while the latter would gain a crucial range of SUVs with which it could grow sales volumes and raise crucial revenue.

McLaren has long been said to be working on an electric SUV that would finally take it into the EV segment, but CEO Michael Leiters told Autocar back in 2023 that his immediate priorities were around putting the car maker "on the right road to profitability”, instead of pursing such a car.

These worries would have been eased somewhat following CYVN's takeover, when it promised a fresh cash injection for the Woking firm.

A suggestion of what will underpin Foreseven's future cars can be ascertained from a licensing agreement it signed last year with Nio – the Chinese car firm in which CYVN also has a $2.9 billion (£2.3bn) stake – to gain access to the company’s EV platforms.

For reference, Nio’s most advanced model, the ET9, can charge at up to 600kW and offers ranges of more than 400 miles, although this is according to China’s lenient CLTC test. The ET9 also gets a 455bhp dual-motor powertrain, allowing it to dispatch 0-62mph in 4.3sec.

Notably, Forseven says its cars will “blend British elegance with ferocious intelligence”, hinting at a focus on digital tech.

It will most likely still be years before we see a Forseven car. That the company is still hiring a manufacturing process lead suggests it has yet to finalise a production-ready design, at the very least. And that means it will arrive in an even more competitive market than that of today: Jaguar and Bentley will have launched their electric flagships by then, and Rolls-Royce will be well on its way to being an EV-only brand.