MCLAREN GLEEFULLY DEMONIC
Swoopy 650S should be terrifying, but the supercar inspires confidence
The rampant stallion, the raging bull, the small, plump, flightless bird. Wait, what’s that thing doing here?
Two quick clicks of the paddle shifter, and the kiwi leaps forward and annihilates the muscular Italians in the manner of the rabbit from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail. Gadzooks — somebody fetch me the holy hand grenade of Antioch, this thing’s possessed!
Dihedral doors swivel open like batwings, revealing the high sills of a carbon- fibre endoskeleton. The C- shaped headlights are slitted in demonic glee. The back engine cover looks like the segmenting of a fossilized trilobite. Carbon- fibre chiton can be found everywhere, from front splitter to side mirrors to the deployable rear air- brake.
In short, there’s no mistaking either of these two machines as anything other than pavement destroying supercars. So where does the fat little ground bird come in again?
Just as the cheetah was once a rat- sized mammal in the time of the dinosaurs, the red insignia scored on the heart of this beast comes from the silhouette of a kiwi’s rump. The founder of this successful racing marque was a New Zealander, Bruce McLaren, and his earliest racing livery featured his homeland’s humble mascot; a patriotic choice to be sure, but maybe a falcon might have been a more appropriate choice. Or a velociraptor.
So here’s what we’re playing with today: a twin- turbocharged 3.8- L engine making 641 horsepower and 500 pound- feet of torque; a seven- speed dual- clutch gearbox activated by a F1- style rocker switch paddle shifter; a handmade carbon- fibre tub that’s approximately as rigid as the rule of Genghis Khan; and two pedals, one of which causes all hell to break loose, and the other, which might cause your eyeballs to fly from your head and roll around on the dashboard.
Some cars are quick. Some cars are fast. Some cars seem to defy the laws of physics. The McLaren 650S is something else entirely, an amalgam of instantaneous reactions carefully assembled by lunatic Englishmen. It should be bloody terrifying — but it isn’t.
Racing fans won’t need a recap of McLaren’s long and victorious history, but here’s a quick overview. Remember Rush, the recent F1 racing movie about the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda? The victorious Hunt drove a McLaren in that season. When Lauda returned from his retirement, he’d drive a McLaren to his third championship. Ever seen footage of legendary driver Ayrton Senna dancing his car through the rain- soaked circuit at Monaco? Yep, that was in a McLaren too.
The brand’s racing side has elevated any number of legendary drivers to championship status. In fact, the steering wheel I hold is exactly the same as the one Lewis Hamilton had in his F1 car, right down to incorporating the thickness of his gloves. However, the cars have also been occasionally deadly. Bruce himself died in 1970 while testing a Can- Am car at Goodwood.
Not being Lewis Hamilton, five minutes behind the controls of this thing and I should be dead, or on fire, or screaming, “Run away! Run away!” like a silly English bedwetting type. Yet once you get over the slight intimidation of driving a car that costs as much as a condominium through downtown, the 650S is actually quite a welcoming machine.
I have some reservations about trying to get into the thing if you take it to the grocery store and a battered Pontiac Grand Prix parks too close to allow the fancy doors to open. Still, the visibility is flatout excellent, and it really isn’t all that impractical to drive it around in traffic. Set in full auto mode, the gearbox is well behaved and complacent. The engine grumbles away contentedly.
It’s really not all that different from driving an old NSX, save that there’s a slight hump to each front fender such that you can more easily judge where your corners are. We crawl through the Armoury district of Vancouver with no more drama than you’d find in your average subcompact.
Because of the shape of the McLaren’s carbon- fibre tub, driver and passenger sit quite close together, almost like being in a 641hp Jacuzzi. It’s not uncomfortable, rather the reverse in fact, and space has been saved by moving climate control to the doors and setting the infotainment centrally in portrait format. Just below this are two toggle switches that change handling, throttle, and tractioncontrol characteristics into more aggressive settings. Oh, go on then.
Over the measured quarter- mile, the 650S will rip off a time of just more than 10 seconds, and then run on to 200 km/ h a second quicker than the legendary F1, a milliondollar car even today. Fast. Fast! FAST! And, ultimately, somewhat pointless.
There’s simply no way you can exploit even a fraction of this car’s potential without the eventual cold clink of the steel bracelets going on. Sorry officer, I, uh, I didn’t know I couldn’t do that.
However, there are two pieces of good news here, the first being that the 650S knows how to draw a crowd. If being seen is your thing, the relative rarity of a McLaren in Canada ( just 200 cars or so) is a draw. You have to explain the car more than you would a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but celebrity status is there for the taking.
The second piece of good news is that you need not risk jail by using the street as your own private race track when you can instead simply use your own private race track. McLaren is a corporate partner at Area 27, a world- class circuit in B. C. scheduled to open in the next year or so. Customers located in Eastern Canada already have access to track days at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park ( formerly Mosport).