FINE DRIVING: MCLAREN’S MIGHTY 650S
Swoopy McLaren should be terrifying, but the supercar inspires confidence behind the wheel
The rampant stallion, the raging bull, the small, plump, flightless bird. Wait, what’s that thing doing here?
Two quick clicks of the paddleshifter, 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 endo-skeleton. 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- litre engine making 641 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque; a seven-speed dualclutch 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.
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.
Because of the shape of the McLaren’s carbon- fibre tub, driver and passenger sit quite close together, almost like being in a 641-hp 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 traction-control characteristics into more aggressive settings. Oh, go on then.
Over the measured quartermile, 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 million-dollar car even today.
There’s simply no way you can exploit even a fraction of this car’s potential without being a very naughty person indeed.
However, there are two pieces of good news here, the first being that the 650S knows how to draw a crowd. Vancouver is up to its eyeballs in supercars with 911s as common as Civics and a Bentley about as exciting as a GTI. We parked these two machines in the heart of image-conscious Yaletown, home of the big-diameter watch and stretchy yoga pant, and accidentally started a selfie-off.
Joggers, drivers, people walking their dogs — everyone wandered over to have a better look. 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).
McLaren’s racing pedigree stretches back decades, but its road-going presence in Canada is still in its infancy; just 18 months have passed since McLaren opened a branch in Vancouver.
However, the upcoming launch of the entry-level 570S model, intended to be priced within theoretical reach of a 911 Turbo owner, could possibly change that. For now, $315,000 buys you one of the fastest production road cars ever built, an ontrack terror that would have most cars from Maranello gulping nervously.