“Army and cars and other things in between,” said the regional director Middle East and Asia Pacific for McLaren Automotives, which is largely known for its Formula One team. “I have had a fairly 
eclectic career.”

Gorsuch has indeed had a varied career, but a lot of his time has been spent with top-end cars — first with Rolls Royce and Bentley and now with McLaren, which plans to roll out its first high-end sports 
car in 2011.

The former army officer, who has lived in Dubai for nearly eight years, is gung-ho about the new product that is undergoing rigorous tests before it is launched in the market. The prototype was tested in the region earlier this year, says Gorsuch who joined McLaren in February.

“First quarter 2011…looks like it is a long way off, but there is a lot to do,” said the man who travels extensively to set up regional teams and search for dealers. “We also have to get people to understand what the brand is. What we are looking at is not a one-off car like the F1 was or the SLR that we (McLaren) did with Mercedes,’ he says as we settle down to order salmon fish cakes and pasta at the Capital Club.

McLaren will produce only 1,000 of the 12C cars, and Gorsuch expects about 100 to be sold in the region. When other models are added, the production would go up to 4,500 cars a year, which means that buyers would have to wait for sometime before they get theirs. “We are not chasing volumes, we are going to be smaller in our operations. It becomes interesting then,” said Gorsuch, explaining that the residual value of the car would be higher due to the waiting period.

Gorsuch knows the high-end car business well, having earlier sold Rolls Royce and Bentleys in the region. Following his stint with the army, which he says he enjoyed thoroughly, he lived in various countries and worked with different businesses before showing up in Dubai to revitalise the Rolls 
Royce business.

“The army is great grounding and now my son is very interested. Obviously his mother is not, as she can see how I turned out,” he says laughing. What were the key learnings he took away when he left, I ask?

“Everyone has a key role to play and training is very, very important,” he said, adding that it was tremendous responsibility commanding 30 people at a young age of 23. “Planning and thinking ahead is important,” he said, recounting his experiences in Northern Ireland.

Once he left the army Gorsuch’s life moved into another direction — into the corporate sector, first as a trainee and then as a manager. It was a fresh start for him when he walked into the army welfare centre looking for a job after completing his short service commission.

“I was looking for a suitable job and all that the army came up with jobs for a lot of insurance agents to sell insurance to army men. I thought the world was my oyster. There was also one for a fast food restaurant manager,” Gorsuch says, smiling as he reminiscences 
his past.

The only interesting opening was at a company called Union International, which involved a lot of international travel, Gorsuch says, adding that two rounds of interview did not really throw light on what the firm did. However, he ended up joining the Vestey that then had interests in several businesses — shipping, farms, trading — around the world and liked to recruit 
ex-army officers.

“The first job was something they called de-pompousification,” Gorsuch said, adding that he first worked in finance and then on farms in Brazil before ending up as the personal assistant to the chairman. “That was good as it got me in touch with CEOs of group companies.”

He later worked in South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia before returning to the United Kingdom after becoming a victim of a recession in the early 1990s. Back home he then joined the Remy Martin group and was responsible for running a sales team as well as the UK stewardship of the famous Champagne house of Krug. Many toasts and dinners later he was approached by Rolls Royce/Bentley that eventually brought him to the region.

Dubai was a small town and the regional market for luxury cars small. The dealers were not a happy lot as they felt they were not looked after well. “Rolls was selling about 40 cars in the region. The Middle East was a sub region of the UK until I took over. So there was no focus, no drive in the region. Dealers were disengaged; they had the brand but were not investing in it,” Gorsuch said, adding that the luxury car market only took off when expatriates got involved with it.

“My initial job was more of a diplomatic one, in an ambassador role to meet the owners of the dealership and get them engaged. That became easier once Rolls Royce went away. Until then we had brand schizophrenia,” says the father of two who loves history. When Gorsuch left Bentley to briefly join the Intercontinental Hotels Group as vice-president sales were up to 500 cars a year.

Earlier this year, it was back to cars for Gorsuch. The difference between Bentley and McLaren for him rests in the fact that companies, which have been around a long time, tend to gather baggage while the new ones can be more focused.

“In McLaren, our chairman has laser like focus and knows what he wants. We are not launching a car, we are launching a car company so we know how others operate. We can take those learnings and start on a clean piece of paper in the best way,” he said, adding that the company knew it will be benchmarked against a Porsche, a Ferrari or the Lamborghini —  a comparison it was comfortable with.