Motorsports fans are familiar with the late, great Bruce McLaren and the McLaren brand, with its remarkable bona fides as Great Britain’s preeminent builder of Formula 1 race cars, but most other folks don’t know Bruce McLaren from Bruce Almighty. Founded by New Zealand–born racer Bruce McLaren, who tragically passed away in a car accident in 1970 after assembling his own successful racing team in the early 1960s, McLaren has manufactured vehicles that have, for the vast majority of the company’s existence,
featured a seating capacity of one and been illegal for street use. McLaren did build about 100 of its 240 mph, three-seat F1 supercars in the mid-’90s and partnered with Mercedes-Benz to produce the SLR McLaren a decade later. Only in 2011 did McLaren go all in with street-legal supercars, but it now offers a range of products, including Sport Series cars like the 570S, starting at about $200K; Super Series products like the 720S, from around $300K; and Ultimate Series cars, such as the new $837,000 Senna hybrid hypercar.
SUMMER 2019
WHAT IS MCLAREN, ANYWAY?
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farther back, a really active rear spoiler not only rises and lowers to optimize aerodynamics but also pops up during moderate to hard braking to enhance stability, its angle of attack commensurate with how firmly one is braking. My personal favorite innovation is the side engine air intakes, which are hidden behind what appear to be separate outer door skins, thus eliminating the unsightly holes on the body sides of most mid-engine supercars. Each intake is fed by a groove in the body that starts about eight feet forward, at the leading edge of the frunk, rising over the front fenders before dipping down deep into the body aft of the door, an arrangement that also creates a nice, clean hiding place for the electric door switches. As for the feature that gleaned the most smiles from the crowds? Clearly the 720S’s upward-swinging dihedral synchrohelix actuation doors, which are not only fun to watch but also fun to operate, and are better than you might expect in tight parking spaces. And, yes, they’re exactly the sort of furnishing that helps elevate mere sports cars into proper supercars. And to that end, the 720S is superlative. ■
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out that the tub is cut low near the front to make it easier for passengers, particularly those wearing skirts, to swing their legs in. The interior decor is remarkably stylish—indeed, it’s the first McLaren interior I’d consider a truly designer space. The dashboard’s harmonious forms and textures stand in stark contrast to the Ferrari’s frenetic arrangement of switchgear and satellite pods and are delightfully free of oppressive visual themes, like the overpowering hexagons that attempt to conceal the Lamborghini’s many Audi-sourced components. Even when dolled up in the Luxury trim’s fragrant, butter-soft, hand-stitched leather and copious other sybaritic delights, the 720S Spider feels like a supercar first and a luxury car/design statement/anything else after that. The steering wheel, for example, is an elegant, thin-rimmed, flat-bottomed sculpture utterly devoid of switches, dials, or controls for anything other than the horn. Sure, it requires the driver to reach a few inches to the comprehensive eight-inch portraitoriented infotainment system to change the volume or radio station (had I turned it on) and f lick the feathery stalks sprouting from the steering column to engage cruise control or cycle through the gauge cluster displays, but I didn’t miss them. Speaking of gauges, not only are there reconfigurable displays, but the entire module also motors down and away at the touch of a button to minimize distraction, leaving a simple readout of engine rpm, current gear selection, and speed. Outside the car, the 720S Spider does anything but minimize distraction. Low and extremely wide, the 720S is wrapped in sculptural carbon fiber bodywork that seduces the eye like the flowing robes of ancient Greek statues, only with lessons learned during McLaren’s 60-year history in racing, so these robes can travel 212 mph, according to McLaren—or 202 with the top down. Set within the bodywork are so many ducts and grilles and scoops and vents channeling air to the various places it’s needed, it might look like Swiss cheese were it not for McLaren’s talented designers. But especially in the pearly turquoise hue that McLaren calls Belize Blue, the 720S Spider strikes a rare balance between aerodynamic proficiency and loin-stirring emotion. The 720S draws a crowd pretty much everywhere it goes, so I learned quickly to point out its many clever design touches, starting with front turn signals that strike through the darkened triangles that also contain the LED headlamps and small radiators behind them. A modestly sized “frunk” is located in the nose, supplemented by another shallow cargo space under the rear deck lid atop the engine that can hold another two cubic feet of really flat things that hopefully aren’t chocolate. Flanking the special-order gloss carbon fiber engine cover—one of many such accessories that elevated the price of our tester from the $315K base cost to $411,300—are see-through aero buttresses that make the rear view through that little rear window a bit more expansive, while
