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McKernon Motors is an American sports car manufacturer based in New York, whose factory is located on 19 West 57th Street. Founded by Avery McKernon, the company specialized in producing Formula One cars. It has an annual turnover of over $150 million.
History[]
- "McKernon's engines and his company have something in common. They win. Like me."
- ―Harvey Specter to Mike Ross
"Fork in the Road" Flashback[]
After senior partner Fairchild died, Louis Litt came up with the idea to team up with Harvey Specter to convince Daniel Hardman to promote the pair of them from senior associates to junior partners rather than promote an existing junior partner to senior partner. Hardman agreed to promote one of them, providing they were able to sign McKernon Motors as a client. Knowing that Avery McKernon valued loyalty, Harvey convinced Avery that he would always be loyal to him and his company, and signed them as his client under the condition he would represent them at an upcoming hearing. However, Hardman informed him that their competitor, Fletcher Engines, wanted to be their client instead, and demanded that Harvey drop McKernon. When Harvey refused, Louis stole Harvey's gameplan for the hearing and gave it to Fletcher, securing his promotion. Despite his loss, Harvey was officially hired as McKernon's attorney.[1]
Season 1[]
In "Inside Track" following Avery's death in 2011, interim CEO Robert Stensland planned to sell the ground underneath the factory for $200 million and move manufacturing overseas assuming that the real asset of McKernon Motors was its name. However, Harvey strongly opposed this idea, because as he said, the real asset is the quality, which would not stay at the same level if manufacturing moved overseas. With the help of Mike Ross and Dominic Barone he convinced a rich businessman Laurence to buy the company for $250 million. Board of directions agreed to this offer, so the flagship factory stayed in New York, remaining high quality and workers' jobs. Stensland was then discharged.[2]And Dominic became the CEO.
Season 4[]
In "Fork in the Road", Harvey along with Mike and Louis took a road trip to McKernon. Hervey did this to repair the working relationship between Mike and Louis, as the latter discovered Mike never went to Harvard and leveraged that information into getting his name on the wall. Eventually the two settle their differences and Mike and Louis become the new legal representation for McKernon Motors after Harvey relinquishes his control as the attorney to the both of them.
Season 5[]
In "Privilege", Mike and Louis meet with Dominic who wants to close a handshake deal with the CEO of RangeTech to buy the company, Dominic states that either the deal goes through or McKernon goes out of business in ten years.
Louis and Mike had discovered that Dominic's friend was betraying him, as the company he was selling was under federal investigation; during Louis and Mike's attempts to remedy the situation, they were sabotaged by Jack Soloff, who signed McKernon's biggest competitor Fletcher Engines who were much bigger and wealthier and therefore would bring in more money for the firm. It eventually transpires that this was an idea given to Jack by Daniel Hardman who wished to take over the firm and had been attempting to do so through Jack as a puppet. Mike and Louis eventually manage to reacquire McKernon after persuading Dominic that they were acting in his interests.
In "Uninvited Guests" McKernon is one of the many clients at Pearson Specter Litt to be targeted by Hardman in a takeover attempt, his reasoning being was because they were solely Harvey's client originally. Harvey paid a visit to Dominic asking that they fire them, claiming that Hardman would not go after them if they were no longer affiliated, although Dominic refused to do so. Hardman's takeover is eventually stopped when Mike threatened to implicate both Daniel and Jack in his crimes stating he would tell the US Attorney's Office that they knew of his fraudulent credentials as an attorney.
Season 8[]
In Season 8, Harvey is informed by Louis that Aston Martin put an offer in approximately a week ago to acquire McKernon Motors meaning that the company and Dominic would no longer be a client of the firm, at this point now titled Zane Specter Litt.
Notable Employees[]
- Robert Stensland – CEO (formerly)
- Dominic Barone – production manager, lead car designer and engineer
- Joe – engineer
Trivia[]
- Harvey informs Mike that he wrote the bylaws for McKernon Motors when he was an associate, when he was two years younger than Mike.[2] However, Mike was 29-30 at the time, whereas Harvey was over 30 when he had signed them on as a client.
- According to Harvey, by 2011, he had spent a decade shaping McKernon Motors' vision alongside Avery McKernon. However, this does not hold up with the series' established timeline, as he would have been their attorney for half a decade at the most by the time of Avery's death.