720S [Official] McLaren 720S

TopspeedPT · May 2, 2017

TopspeedPT · May 2, 2017

hoffmeister_fan · May 2, 2017

Merc1 · May 2, 2017

After watching those 3 videos, it is clear they have built a winner. That Orange is everything. I'd be torn between Orange and White.

M

kingjr9000 · May 2, 2017

Evo.

McLaren 720S review - the Super Series gets bigger, faster and more powerful
JOHN BARKER
3 MAY 2017

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VERDICT:
The McLaren 720S is an improvement over its predecessor in every respect, except in terms of excitement
EVO RATING:

PRICE:
£218,000
FOR
Superb ride and chassis control, performance
AGAINST
Uninspiring engine note

What is it?
McLaren’s new all-scenarios ‘Super Series’ supercar, and thus the successor to the 650S and 12C. It has an all-new body design made from superformed aluminium with gullwing doors and lots of concealed vents and ducts for a smooth appearance – apart from the signature ‘eye socket’ headlamp-cum-air intakes. The bi-turbo V8 engine is bigger at 4.0-litres, developing a monster 710bhp (720ps), and the suspension is a revised version of the original ‘Proactive Chassis Control’ (PCC), with more sensors, that manages roll and pitch even more effectively. In short, it’s not just a new look, it’s a faster, more capable car. And it features a drift-mode, too.

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Engine, transmission and 0-60
The new ‘M840T’ 4-litre version of the flat-plane crank V8 is the first up-sizing of the engine and is said to be 41 per cent new. Compared with the 3.8 in the 650S, power goes up almost 70bhp and torque by 68lb ft, again fed through the seven-speed dual clutch ‘SSG’ gearbox. Weight has been saved, to the tune of 18kg comparing dry weights, and performance is astonishing – 0-60mph in 2.8sec (3.0sec for 650S), 0-124mph in 7.8sec and a top speed of 212mph (207mph).

> Read our review of the McLaren 650S here

Tech highlights
The heart of the car is the carbonfibre tub, dubbed ‘Monocage II’, which now incorporates the windscreen hoop, saving weight in a crucial area versus the metal version on previous Super Series cars.

However, the change that should be most noticeable is to the suspension. The new control system for the cross-linked hydraulic set-up (which does without anti-roll bars) adds another ECU and a dozen more sensors to know more accurately what the car is doing and what road inputs there are. Using that information, it goes to look-up tables to determine how the car should respond. It’s the fruit of a PHD project that has been in development for five years. It’s said that the superior wheel control it brings improves braking to P1 levels and cornering to trackday-tyre levels, all on the latest spec ‘everyday’ P-Zero with its all-weather performance and ride-enhancing suppleness.

What’s it like to drive?
The HMI is marginally improved, especially switchgear tactility, and there are certainly none of the chassis foibles that characterised the first MP4-12C and, to a lesser degree, the 650S – the sensation that there was occasionally diagonal pitching and that the car wasn’t quite as firmly tied down as it could be.

The feeling that ride comfort was gained at the expense of handling was less the case with the 650S and the 720S moves things to another level with exceptional ride comfort for a supercar and the roll- and pitch-free control you’d expect in the corners. It’s sensationally quick and control is clean and precise, and yet it isn’t as exciting as you’d hope.

> Read our Ferrari 488 GTB review

A large part of this is down to the lack of an exciting engine note – just a lot of hissing and wooshing as large amounts of air are ingested, compressed and turned into power, rather than what a supercar should have, namely a thrilling, engaging engine note.

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On track, Variable Drift Control didn’t seem to make slides any easier, either – you still need to be brave to initiate them and the car doesn’t seem to behave consistently. Loosening the ESP control to the ‘dynamic’ setting seems to do pretty much the same job, ie not letting the car get too far out of line.

Price and rivals

The 720S takes the Super Series car well into the £200k bracket. It costs £218k in base form, and there’s lots you can add to make the car more bespoke. The list includes the lovely, exposed carbonfibre A-pillars on the inside, transparent panels for the gullwing doors for the full glasshouse experience and a McLaren track telemetry app.

It makes the 661bhp Ferrari 488 GTB look like a bit of a bargain at just over £183k, especially given how it conjures more excitement from a similar engine and a remarkably adept chassis.

McLaren 720S review - the Super Series gets bigger, faster and more powerful

kingjr9000 · May 2, 2017

CAR

McLaren 720S (2017) review

More info on McLaren 650S
► Read CAR's McLaren 720S review
► Successor to the 12C and 650S
► 710bhp, 0-62mph in 2.8sec, £208,600

The 720S replaces McLaren’s 650S and ushers in a bold new design language. But does the excitement run more than skin deep?

One word: wow!
A few more: if McLaren is capable of stuff like this, why did the 12C (and its facelifted 650S successor) look so dull?

For reasons known only to itself, McLaren designed the 12C before hiring its first (and current) design boss, Frank Stephenson, and exterior designer Rob Melville.

The P1 and 570 showed what Stephenson, Melville and the other members of the design team were capable of, but this is their first crack at a Super Series car.

A what?
Oh come, on, surely you’ve got a handle on McLaren’s naming policy by now: Sport Series for entry level cars, Ultimate Series for halo cars like the P1 and P1 GTR, and Super Series for the stuff in the middle. Or Ferrari 488-series, you might say, because that’s what it’s up against.

And how does it compare?
In design terms, it kicks it red, white and blue. You might not like the headlamp treatment (the ‘eye sockets’ are actually giant air intakes), but hiding the side air intake behind a second door skin is a clever touch that gives the 720S a very unique look.

In performance terms the 720S also pushes ahead. The V8 gets a 200cc capacity hike to 4.0-litres and low inertia twin-scroll turbos to help reduce lag. It makes 710bhp (720ps), compared with 641bhp for the 650S and 661bhp for the Ferrari 488. Even the P1’s engine – minus the electric assist, admittedly – only produced 727bhp. Turbo lag isn’t completely eliminated, but it’s much better than in McLaren’s other cars, and the acceleration is phenomenal: 0-62mph in 2.8sec and 100mph in 7.8sec. The 488 needs 3.0sec and 8.3sec respectively.

If only it didn’t sound so meek, but then the Ferrari’s not much to listen to either. The Ferrari does have price on its side though. A 488 GTB costs £184k, and the McLaren wears a £208,600 sticker.

What about the chassis? Does it drive as differently as it looks like it should?
There’s noticeably more steering weight compared with the 650S, which gives a more connected feel at low speeds, and that’s come about due to geometry changes that dramatically improve the stability under extreme braking.

Otherwise, the sensations are very familiar, only improved. The chassis balance is excellent, offering plenty of traction to make use of the engine’s 568lb ft, while a new ‘Drift Control’ ESP system allows you to explore beyond the tyres’ limits without fear of falling into the sand. To be honest though ‘drift’ is slightly disingenuous. Do expect to pull off neat little slides. Don’t expect to exit corners with North Sea oil rig fire-levels of smoke pouring from the rear rubber.

And does the exciting new design direction mean McLaren has ditched its everyday-supercar philosophy?
Not at all. The hydraulic suspension ensures an excellent ride, the visibility is superb, and getting in and out is simpler thanks to a new lower sill and doors that require 155mm less space to swing open. Handy for tight parking spots.

There are also stacks of luggage space: 150 litres in the nose and 210 litres behind the seats. That’s more than you get in a Ford Focus. It’s just a shame the rear canopy doesn’t open to make loading easier like it does on the 570GT.

Verdict
If you can get on with those headlights, and are rich enough not to flinch at paying more for the 720S than its rivals, the only real sticking point is the standard car’s too-quiet exhaust. An optional sports exhaust partially remedies that, but if you really want the back of your neck to feel like a wire brush Lamborghini’s vastly cheaper Huracan has the soundtrack for the job.

But the Lambo doesn’t have the unique-in-class carbon chassis, or the exotic doors that McLaren’s rivals reserve for their halo models. It can’t match the 720’s obscene performance, friendly but engaging handling or practicality. Tot the points up and the 720S is clearly ahead of the competition. But this time, it has the emotional appeal of proper knockout aesthetics – the thing the 12C sorely lacked - to back the decision up.

McLaren 720S (2017) review

kingjr9000 · May 2, 2017

TG.

McLaren 720S review: 710bhp supercar put to the test

The McLaren 720S. At last…

Few car companies are mapping out the same intergalactic trajectory as McLaren. From a standing start less than a decade ago, Woking’s finest have ridden out some early speed bumps and gone on to blow our collective minds with the likes of the 570S, 675LT, and P1. They’re on course to sell 4,000 cars this year, it’s a less uptight place than it used to be, and the 720S signals another major milestone: this is the first time McLaren has completely replaced one of its core cars.

Time to push the giant re-set button?

In some ways, yes. McLaren Automotive has the sort of restless, questing spirit you’d associate with a tech start-up, and the 720S demonstrates the company’s preparedness to veer off at some unusual tangents, visual and otherwise, as well as addressing the areas that misfired first time round. McLaren says 91 per cent of the 720S is new, and the enlarged 4.0-litre engine features 41 per cent new content: turbos, intercoolers, cast-aluminium plenum, cylinder heads, crankshaft, pistons, and exhaust.

Topline numbers include 710bhp, 568 torques, 249 CO2s, 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds, 0-124mph in 7.8, and 0-186mph (300km/h, if you prefer) in 21.8. There’s also some seriously funky new software to go with the hard bits, and a handful of theatrical flourishes. The doors are double-skinned dihedral jobs that open to 80°, and the engine isn’t just visible through the rear screen, it’s also illuminated.

Lots of sleepless nights, then.

Development work started back in 2013, before the 650S had even been announced, and a big chunk of it was done virtually. The first full validation car was only built and driven 11 months ago, so its path to market has been extremely rapid. The aero work is off-the-scale: the panel ahead of the front wheels evacuates the turbulent high pressure air away and along the side to increase downforce, while a channel at the top of the doors ducts high velocity cooling air into the radiators in the engine bay. There are no bodywork slashes here, despite its mid-engined configuration. The 720S generates 50 per cent more downforce than the 650S managed at full tilt, has double the overall aerodynamic efficiency, and is 15 per cent more efficient in its cooling.

McLaren says it was targeting the excitement of the 675 LT and the refinement of the 570 GT, which are lofty and possibly incompatible goals. It’s also worth remembering that the 720S is pretty much P1-fast in certain increments, and has similar braking capability (from 124mph to standstill in 4.6 seconds across just 117m). Crazy stuff. But it’s also designed to be useable every day, accessible and non-threatening even to numpties, and emits a relatively cuddly 249 CO2s. On paper, it’s almost miraculous.

Sounds too good to be true. Is it?

Well, it’s certainly good. In fact, we’d go so far as to say this is probably the single most accomplished supercar we’ve ever driven, which is not the sort of statement we make lightly. Remember, though, that McLaren was burned back in the day by a perceived lack of soul in its early cars, and we all know that it’s the indefinable bits that usually elevate a supercar. First impressions here are great: steering feel is impossible to measure objectively, but the 720S has that road/car/driver telepathic thing absolutely nailed – it moves like a big Lotus Elise.

It’s monumentally fast, possesses the sort of high-speed balance and stability that bespeaks absolute mastery of aerodynamics, and somehow refuses to punish you even on truly execrable road surfaces. According to product director Mark Vinnels, “the challenge was to revolutionise the segment. But we also wanted to make a big leap in entertainment. We want to combine performance, emotion, refinement and efficiency in a single, beautiful whole.” The 675 LT is one of the most engaging cars ever made by anyone ever: has McLaren pulled off the same trick here, while dialing down on the aggression?

Remind me what’s under the skin?

Lots of carbon fibre. Dubbed ‘Monocage II’, the chassis structure now incorporates an upper structure and windscreen surround, so it’s even more rigid than the 650. Lighter, too: its lightest dry weight is 1,283kg, 18kg less than the equivalent 650S. There’s an enhanced centre of gravity, thanks to the engine being mounted 150mm lower than before. A ‘visible monocage’ that exposes the material on the inside of the A-pillar is a £3,990 option (more on all that later: things can get very costly indeed). The cowl is also lower: like the magnificent 570, the 720S gets closer to serving up the jet fighter sensation than anything else on the road, and its vision all-round is peerless. The all-glass cockpit isn’t just pretty, it means you can traverse London without mowing down a peloton of cyclists, or reverse park the thing without knackering your street cred. Or the alloys.

More driving impressions now, please.

How edgy do you like your 700bhp-plus mid-engined supercars to be? Having received a pre-flight instruction from a McLaren operative (not that daunting), and easing our way through early-morning Rome traffic (pretty sticky), here’s the thing: the 720S is easy to drive. Really easy. Common sense demands acclimatisation, but you get settled incredibly quickly. Tyre noise and mechanical thrum is negligible at regular cruising speeds. Turn up the heat and the McLaren does that thing all sub-3.0 seconds to 60mph cars do: compress time. You are here, now you are there: the bit in between is simply vaporised.

But rarely has the time-warp been performed with so little conspicuous drama. The twin turbos are ultra-low inertia, twin scroll jobs that spool up much faster to reduce lag and sharpen throttle response. The red line in first and second gear is 8,100rpm, 8,200 in the next four. Keep the throttle pinned throughout, and big numbers rack up very rapidly indeed. Shift times on the seven-speed dual-shift ’box are 45 per cent faster than even the 675 LT delivers. You can sense the chassis electronics doing their thing, but only just. The 720S’s limits are somewhere beyond sky-high and out in the stratosphere.

Noise?

McLaren has reworked the harmonics on the new exhaust system, and the optional Sports Exhaust (there goes another £4,750) uses an intake sound generator to pump more volume into the cabin via twin vents mounted between the seats on the rear bulkhead. In standard form, the 720S is just five per cent off the 570GT in terms of noise levels, so it can do the long-haul; the sports exhaust moves it much closer to the 675 LT on the audio spectrum. Overall, and purely subjectively, we’d still say a normally aspirated engine has the edge – a shout out here to Audi’s brilliant and rather under-appreciated R8 – but as turbo motors go, the 720S is a new benchmark. Especially if you do what McLaren calls a ‘hot start’, which means sticking it in track/track mode, at which point it emits an entirely pointless but highly enjoyable wail.

What else is new?

The 650’s multi-adjustable Proactive Chassis Control receives some intriguing revisions. As before, the dampers are interlinked at each corner, so there are no conventional anti-roll bars. There’s improved hardware, though: the uprights and double wishbones are new, reducing un-sprung weight by 16kg. As before, you can choose between Comfort, Sport, or Track mode according to location or intention. PCC II uses multiple sensors – 12 more than previously, including an accelerometer on each wheel hub – to monitor inputs from the road and measure the tyre contact patch. The information is processed in milliseconds by the ‘Optimal Controller’ algorithm, developed by McLaren in conjunction with a Cambridge University PHD research programme.

According to vehicle development director Ben Gulliver, the system can alter the valves in the dampers in a way that pre-empts changes in road surface rather than reacting to them. Chief test driver Chris Goodwin is particularly proud of the work done on the rear suspension geometry. “This car can conjure amazing grip and balance even on the bumpiest roads,” he tells us. One other thing: the base Pirelli tyre (245/35 ZR19s on the front, 305/30 ZR20s on the rear – bespoke to McLaren) used by the 720S has the same performance as the old Trofeo track rubber. There is grip and compliance in equal measure, although the Ferrari 488 GTB runs it very close.

No sign of EPAS or an active rear axle?

Nope. “The hardware is still too heavy, the response times too slow,” says Gulliver of the latter, while Goodwin jokes that McLaren will happily keep electro-hydraulic steering in business for a long time yet. On the 720S, the rack uses one software map, and the linearity of response and the dialogue that builds between you and the road is spectacular. A small but important point: the three-spoke wheel isn’t buried under a welter of buttons, it exists to steer the car and nothing else. Proper.

How does it feel on the track?

Vallelunga is relatively short but a lot of fun. But it’s also where we get to the heart of the matter: the 720S is so damned good it’s almost… undramatic. Dramatically undramatic. It’s that edgy supercar question again: do you need to be asking for planning permission on the ragged edge before decreeing something a ‘real’ supercar? Or do you just want to go ballistically fast, everywhere, rain or shine, with almost total impunity? The 720S isn’t clinical, but it is surgical.

The new Variable Drift Control, which, according to McLaren, “delivers additional enjoyment in Sport and Track modes, with finger-tip control of Electronic Stability Control intensity”, is amusing, but you still need to be able to balance steering and throttle effectively, so why not just turn everything off? Goodwin reckons the system works like the nine-stage traction control in McLaren’s GT race cars, and the end game is finding the best set-up for whichever track you regularly visit. In other words, traction optimisation rather than control. Whatever your bag, turn all the electronics off and the sheer genius of the chassis is laid bare. What a machine this is.

And inside?

Inside, the 720S somehow combines the brutal ergonomic efficacy of a race car with the technical luxury of a contemporary GT. The drive mode controls now live in a vertical pod to the left of the wheel. The principal read-outs are housed directly ahead, and the ‘folding display’ is very cool, the idea being that you can focus on the key read-outs if you’re in maximum attack mode. The D, N and R buttons are in another pod that tapers towards the bottom. The doors eat into the roof, Ford GT40-style, and it really does feel like being at the pointy end of an arrow, only with much more control over your own destiny. The ‘human’ graphic on the climate control display is wearing a crash helmet. Nice touch. There’s also an awesome 1,280W audio system, and the speakers are a seamlessly integrated part of the interior topography. But the sat nav drove me mad, and the seat controls are difficult to reach (£2730 for heated electric seats btw). Turns out they’re one of the few things carried over from the 650S.

Hmm. Sounds like maybe we should order ourselves one.

It’s as intriguing as you’d hope, the 720S. All 400 launch-spec cars are long gone, and 1,400 cars have been ordered before the first 720S has even left the factory. McLaren, it seems, has hit the motherlode. Only a full-blooded back-to-back test against the Ferrari, preferably on British roads we know, probably somewhere in north Wales, will reveal the complete picture. Mind you, on power alone it vaults itself ahead of its Italian rival, which might bring the new 488 Speciale (or whatever it’ll be called) onto the front-burner. The 720S is magnificent, but also surprisingly nuanced for such an adrenalised proposition. It takes time to work out the full scale of its, and its creators, achievements. It’s also worth noting that our test car lifted the £218,020 list price to £292,000-plus, and that the full carbon look, inside and out, doesn’t come cheap. To put it another way: how does a McLaren 570GT and a Porsche 911 GT3 sound?

TopspeedPT · May 2, 2017

Youtubers a bit dissapointed. Too much of a GT car. Well, it replaces the 650S so...
Specially Mr.JWW(675LT owner) at 4:17.

Rainer271 · May 3, 2017

slicknick · May 3, 2017

TopspeedPT said:
Youtubers a bit dissapointed. Too much of a GT car. Well, it replaces the 650S so...
Specially Mr.JWW(675LT owner) at 4:17.

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That's kind of silly to say the 720S is not hardcore enough, and comparing it to the 675LT though...On that basis, the same analogy can be made between the 488 and the 458 Speciale...I mean, one is a road-going supercar, while the other one is designed specifically to be a track monster turned up to 11

slicknick · May 3, 2017

A.P. · May 3, 2017

Atleast they will have less to improve for the LT version compared to 12C/650S transition to the LT. Seems like it is still a good supercar, maybe a little bit dull to drive, but it is the standard model after all.

slicknick · May 3, 2017

A.P. said:
Atleast they will have less to improve for the LT version compared to 12C/650S transition to the LT. Seems like it is still a good supercar, maybe a little bit dull to drive, but it is the standard model after all.

But then, aren't all standard supercars dull compared to their hardcore, unplugged siblings ?

TopspeedPT · May 3, 2017

Stunning spec

A.P. · May 3, 2017

slicknick said:
But then, aren't all standard supercars dull compared to their hardcore, unplugged siblings ?

Exactly, besides at this price point, without the MSO stuff, the 720S is a steal. As Steve Shuffle said in his review, the 720S should be priced in the £300ks.

hoffmeister_fan · May 3, 2017

In some of the youtuber vids, the car sounds a bit better than in those videos done by magazines. I think if it had a noise similar to the 488, I think that would go a big way in adding the drama that seems to be lacking, especially in higher revs. Nonetheless, it seems veddy, veddy impressive.

Also, I think this is a car where you cannot fully appreciate in one or two hours of introductory driving. This seems, like its design, is a grower.

TopspeedPT · May 3, 2017

Rainer271 · May 3, 2017

hoffmeister_fan · May 3, 2017

The unbelievable everyday supercar | 2017 McLaren 720S First Drive
(Autoblog.com)

The unbelievable everyday supercar | 2017 McLaren 720S First Drive
It's absurdly fast and ridiculously comfortable.

The McLaren 720S goes around a racetrack the way the Earth goes around the sun, inasmuch as the numbers involved are very difficult to comprehend. The Earth is very large, and the sun is even larger and very far away, such that a relative speed of 67,000 miles per hour seems crazy but is barely noticeable. The McLaren, however, puts you in a more immediate frame of reference, such that everything pertaining to its speed is not just noticeable, but alarming.

The 720S is so fast that there's no warming up to it. Almost immediately you're driving at speeds that, in pretty much any other car would mean imminent calamity. Even the non-alarming voice the driving coach in the passenger seat uses to tell you to go faster seems alarming.

Best of all, though, McLaren reminds you that rewards come with skill, not just speed, which is weird for a car this fast. You can't just point the steering wheel, mash the gas and let the electronics sort everything out. You have to, you know, actually drive, paying close attention to weight transfer and smooth inputs. That also sounds weird, but it's rare these days. In our world of point-and-shoot supercars, McLaren made the 720S a true driver's car.

So, how did we get here? In brief, after dipping a toe in the carmaking pool with the McLaren F1 in 1992 and the Mercedes-McLaren SLR in 2003, racing juggernaut McLaren started McLaren Automotive in 2010 and got into the business full time. That lead to the MP4-12C (later just 12C), P1, and eventually the three-tier Sport, Super, and Ultimate series lineup present today. The 720S sits in the middle, replacing the 650S and 675LT. Since the start, McLaren has launched at least one new model or derivative every year. So expect a variant of the 720S in 2018.

This is the first of McLaren's second-generation regular production cars. It uses a carbon-fiber underbody the company calls Monocage II, an evolution of the P1's monocoque that replaces the previous carbon fiber tub. It has all the things that come with structual evolution: light weight, lower side sills, higher rigidity. The new carbon monocoque also results in amazing rear visibility, thanks to a C-pillar located at the far edge of the car, bolstered by another thin strip of carbon fiber with glass covering the space in between.

Visbility also benefits from the fighter-jet profile of the 720S. The wedge-shape of the previous McLarens gives way to a canopy-like roof that recalls cars like the Pagani Zonda or original Acura NSX. McLaren goes a step further by folding the air inlets for the radiators into the doors, so that you can't see them from the side of the car.

Every crease and curve in the 720S leads to some kind of aerodynamic function. And then there are the eyeholes. The blacked out area in the nose houses the daytime running lamp light bar, the headlights, and inlets for more heat exchangers. The motivation was to avoid having more inlets that disrupt airflow or make the styling too fussy. In person, they're fine. Otherwise the 720S is a beauty of sweeping, organic shapes. It makes the previous McLaren cars, which were attractive in their own right, look heavy and dowdy.

Open up the out-and-up hinged dihedral door and climbing to the 720S is easy, provided you're not interacting with the optional racing buckets. Those seats have a deep hip bolsters, which makes exiting about as elegant as getting up from a bean bag chair. On the plus side, they're nearly as comfortable as the standard seats and more supportive in hard cornering, which the 720S does well and often. The rest of the cabin is familiar McLaren territory with a couple of parlor tricks thrown in for good fun. The main attraction is the tilting dashboard, that goes from a full digital display to a horizonal tachometer and digital speedometer. McLaren sees your head-up display, and decided it doesn't need it. The other trick is deep storage pockets in the doors, which latch closed when the door swings up to prevent any unwanted spillage of whatever McLaren owners stash in the doors. Is it gum wrappers and receipts like the rest of us?

Anyway, fire up the 720S with the start button (make sure the brake pedal is firmly pressed, lest embarrass yourself by cycling through the on, off, and accessory modes to no effect), and the new 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 comes to life. It doesn't roar to life or howl, it just starts. And that's the biggest fault of the McLaren 720S. For a $288,845 starting you don't get much in the engine noise department. The optional sports exhaust elevates the soundtrack from bland nothingness to a nice tenor growl, but the McLaren still lacks the distinctive sound of a V8 in a Corvette, Aston Martin, or pre-turbo Ferrari.

But oh heavens does this engine go. It's an evolution of McLaren's 3.8-liter V8, stroked 200 cubic centimeters, with new turbos, electronic wastegrates, intake plenum, heads, crank, and pistons to list a few parts. McLaren says it's 41-percent new. Output is up 69 horsepower, and 68 pound-feet of torque, to 710 hp and 568 lb-ft. Zero to 60 miles per hour happens in a claimed 2.8 seconds. McLaren says the 720S will do the quarter-mile in 10.3 seconds. Top speed is 212 mph.

Those numbers seem like afterthoughts to how the McLaren feels. And it's not just the launch, it's anything that involves forward progress. And probably reverse as well, but we didn't try that. Stab the accelerator on an open stretch of country road and you're up to 120 mph in a matter of a few car lengths. That move - hard gas, hard brake, maniacal laughter, repeat - never gets old. On the track the 720S accelerates with an unbelievable ferocity. As in, during the time between easing on the gas pedal and pinning it to the firewall, your brain stops about halfway down while your foot keeps moving. I did it, lap after lap, and every time found it shocking.

Yet for such power, and equally matched grip and braking performance, two things stand out about driving the 720S fast. First, the lack of noticeable electronic intervention. Even on a rough two-lane the only indication of traction control is the flashing light. There's no bogging or surging in the engine.

The second thing about driving the 720S fast is how balanced it feels. This also conveys a hint of danger, at least at first encounter: drive this wrong and you'll pay for it. Get accustomed to the car's responses, though, and it floats through corners. This McLaren doesn't oversteer or undeersteer so much as it just corrects course with the right pedal application. The only exception to this is when the rear wing pops up as an air brake at decelerations above 0.5 g and you feel a noticeable weight shift to the rear.

There are three modes each to both the suspension and powertrain: comfort, sport, and track. McLaren representatives noted the elimation of "Normal" as the default setting, which is a nice touch. Sport and Track progressively tighten up the dual-clutch automatic shift speed and loosen up the stability control threshold. Then there's Variable Drift Control, which McLaren is keen to point out is not a magic drift mode button, but more of a variable setting to allow more and more yaw. In function it's similar to other graduated track modes like Chevy's performance traction management, but more oriented towards potential hoonage. You can also turn everything off for full Cars and Coffee social media embarrassment.

Then there's McLaren Track Telemetry (MTT), a $2,620 option on its own or $4,220 lumped in with front, rear, and in-cockpit cameras. This is the part that makes the 720S both a driver's car and a driving coach. MTT delivers a full suite of telemetry and lap timing, plus a split time display in the dashboard. Inside the car you can review video, look at data like speed, brake pedal force, and steering angle and compare it all to a reference lap. In my case I learned that compared to McLaren's pro driver I chickened out on Vallelunga's Curva Grande (duh) but did some good hard braking after the back straight (hooray for me). It will also show your theoretical fastest lap from a sessions by taking the best splits, just like in Formula one. And you can download the data and video to a USB drive for further analysis or social media embarrassment.

McLaren's cars have always delivered an amazing combination of comfort with the performance. If there's a unique angle to the cars from Woking, other than not being Italian, it's that they meld all that performance with plenty of comfort. A major key to this is Proactive Chassis Control, McLaren's name for its hydraulic suspension that moves pressurized oil between the corners of the car. The newest evolution of this adds one accelerometer and two pressure sensors in the damper at each corner. The fun fact is that the 720S does it without anti-roll bars. The practical upside is that, especially in Comfort mode, the McLaren's ride is amazingly compliant, bordering on downright pleasant. If you long for spinal punishment, Track mode stiffens things up to barely-tolerable levels on public roads.

Along with the complaint ride is a spacious cabin, which is a surprise given how wide the doors are. There's more than a foot more car beyond your elbow. Even for a wide car that should make for a cramped cabin, but there's plenty of shoulder room and the abundance of glass in the cabin keeps things from getting claustrophobic. Cars this expensive that sell in numbers as few as the 720S have resale values that are tied closely to odometer mileage. Which is a shame, because McLaren a built a supercar perfect for long distances. It's even user friendly. Whereas Ferrari makes you fuss with pulling both shift paddles for neutral, the 720S has three big buttons for drive, neutral, and reverse.

So the McLaren 720S is a car made for driving, both on the track and, well, anywhere. And you can actually buy one, unlike the obsessive vetting process for the Ford GT. It's safe to say that in it's short history McLaren has carved out new ground in the supercar world, both in terms of accessibility (at least to the monied) and expanding the breadth of capabilities. It's also safe to say that the 720S is McLaren's best regular production car yet. At least until the next trip around the sun.

Merc1 · May 3, 2017

I think this color is the winner.

M

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