A CLEVER SUPERCAR
This quick, sensible and deeply technical machine is an enthusiast engineer's dream
Today's supercars are too fast to use, too easy to work — and don't even get me started on hybrids. I pine for a bygone era of analog motoring, steeping myself in classic cars, despite the headaches of maintaining my own. Fortunately, I've now tasted something of an incremental cure.
By its elegant duality, the new Mclaren Artura is finally warming me to the miracles of modern enthusiast engineering. And its hybrid advancements might even be relaxing my prideful abhorrence of modern electronics' soulless depravity.
The Mclaren Artura is Woking's latest series-production supercar, and a significant step for the marque. With a hybrid powertrain and markedly greater civility than the popular 720S, the Artura offers plenty of satisfaction on the track and remarkable comfort on the way home.
The Artura is quick enough that the numbers barely matter, but to get them out of the way: zero to 96 km/ h takes three seconds, top speed is 330 km/ h, and it weighs 3,303 pounds (1,498 kilograms). More important to a Mclaren, however, is its indulgent engineering geekery — something the Artura has in abundance.
Key to the new car's character is its unique powertrain. The Artura uses a turbocharged and hybridized 120-degree “hot-vee” V6, a first for the segment. Splaying those already-lightweight banks wide keeps their mass lower, their heat concentrated atop, with turbochargers and exhausts running right down the middle. These pneumatic twists are mounted right against the heads, minimizing the header volume to be pressurized for spooling and bringing greater immediacy to engine response.
It seems straightforward, but it really isn't. Exhaust catalysts get hot — 900 F. How do you keep that sort of heat mere inches from servos without melting them and without weighing the car down with extensive shielding? In the case of the wastegate actuators, you stuff them into the cool airstream of the turbo inlet.
This sort of thoughtful solutions pops out all over the Artura, and stitching them together illuminates how the car took so many years to develop.
Augmenting this is the hybridization. While it does render some economy benefits and enable 18km stretches of all-electric driving, Mclaren's application emphasizes smooth and abundant power delivery across the rev range.
Technically, the Artura is a twin-turbocharged hybrid. Emotionally, it starts to feel like a quad-turbo that, in turn, feels naturally aspirated. Hybrid torque infill works so well that the driving experience circles back to the good ol' days of free-breathing engines.
Keeping that hybridization invisible, the braking interface remains delightfully heavily hydraulic. There's no brake-by-wire, nor is there any jerky regeneration to unsettle the car. Get moving fast, and you'll be putting your weight into deceleration. This pleases me.
Per the Mclaren mission, light weight and agility remain the important focuses. Vehicle system Ethernet saves complexity and weight in the wiring harness, the V6 trims 110 lbs (50 kg) versus a Mclaren V8, and the entire hybrid system adds just 287 lbs (130 kg). Even the electric motor, an industry-first axial arrangement (think parallel discs versus a radial's orbital setup), produces one-third more power than the P1 hypercar, despite weighing just 34 lbs (15 kg). The net product is the lightest and most powerful-to-weight in its segment.
Even the tires are smart, with sensor blisters on their inner faces feeding precise temperature and pressure data to inform the car's tire-matched ABS and continuously variable E-LSD traction responses.
Deeply technical, this car is an enthusiast engineer's dream. But with so much happening in the background, it doesn't feel as though the Artura's systems save a driver, so much as silently preempt error. This means much of the Artura's best work goes deliberately unseen and unnoticed.
Warranty coverage is remarkable, and extendable to 15 years. Camera resolution may be underwhelming, but what's a supercar without odd shortcomings?
If you don't suffer my sort of fool-hearted traditionalism, then the power, usability, and warranty of the Artura seem a strong value at $280,000. And if you are an idiot like me, it turns out that there is hope.