Incy princely Spider!
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TAKE a good look at this picture of the McLaren 650S Spider. It is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a stunner, fit to grace the bedroom walls of teenage petrolheads around the world.
However, beauty, as us older chaps know, is not just skin deep and the 650S Spider has wonderful depths to its personality too.
For a start, it’s what you could – at a stretch – call a multi-purpose supercar.
It’s a high-performance sports car, thrilling to drive with driver appeal and engagement at the heart of it.
But, it isn’t, like some rivals, a stripped out racer.
It’s fast and furious sure, but comfortable and relatively refined too. Around town, it’s a lamb – a pussycat perhaps – in wolf’s clothing.
The twin-turbocharged V8 engine is pretty much the same used in all of
TEST DRIVE MCLAREN 650S SPIDER
McLaren’s cars but this one has been tweaked to create 641bhp and with that comes staggeringly thrilling performance – the 62mph sprint takes just three seconds and 124mph (200kph) is reached in 8.6 seconds.
As usual, the engine drives the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual clutch automatic gearbox but McLaren has sprinkled some magic on its software to give faster and crisper shifts.
Believe me, they are Granny Smith crisp! Kudos here to the heated glass rear window, which operates independently of the two-piece roof.
With the roof down, the rear acts as a wind deflector.
With it up, the rear screen can be lowered to allow more aural sexiness into the cockpit.
And you’ll want that as, when the Spider is in ‘Sport’ mode, the ignition is cut between shifts but the fuel isn’t, which gives a fabulous flare and pop from the exhaust when changing up. It’s addictive.
The 650S Spider boasts an extensive spec list including satnav, Bluetooth, DAB digital radio, audio streaming and voice control as standard. There’s even a rear parking camera. Swathed in lightweight Alcantara – full leather trim is available – the cockpit is surprisingly roomy and comfortable, even for the fuller-figured gentleman like myself.
As well as the carbon fibre chassis, McLaren has used other clever-clever stuff from its rich F1 heritage to produce such a powerful pussycat including full wishbone suspension, Brake Steer and active aerodynamics.
McLaren’s pioneering ProActive Chassis Control suspension system has been improved for the 650S.
This enables the driver to adjust the ride and handling modes – Normal, Sport and Track – in isolation from the drivetrain, giving complete freedom in terms of ride and handling.
Brake Steer aids cornering by bringing the vehicle’s nose into the apex by applying braking force to the inside rear wheel, enabling the driver to brake later and get on the power earlier.
By using the same hardware as the Electronic Stability Control (ESC) system, it also reduces understeer.
All this makes the 650S one of the finest supercars you can buy – a wolf in wolf’s clothing but, with the flick of a switch, a gentle purring pussycat. Nothing else comes close. McLaren 650S Spider £218,250 641bhp, 3,799cc, V8 twin turbo driving rear wheels through a seven-speed automatic gearbox
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