MCLAREN 765LT
Mclaren's already ballistic 720s has been taken to an even higher level with a Longtail makeover. We had to Silvertone to sample the incredible new 765LT. Hold on tight!
IT’S LONGTAIL TIME AGAIN, AND THIS TIME it’s the turn of the Big Daddy – the Super Series car with its claws sharpened and the sort of stringent weight loss and muscle-building regime that would make an East German training camp coach blanch. Many have spoken of Mclaren fatigue recently, a snowblindness created by an endless sequence of new models and MSO one-offs, but however otherworldly in price or performance the new 765LT may be, I find it hard to imagine not being excited by the arrival of a 720S aimed specifically at those who like to drive hard on road and track. Consider, too, that it’s forebear, the ballistic 675LT, was sometimes referred to as a modern-day Ferrari F40, and that it was so nearly the winner of ecoty 2015 (one judge really didn’t get on with it, which affected its final score badly). So even in this current climate the expectation level is stratospheric. It’s also worth remembering that the days are probably numbered for these purely internal combustion engine-powered ‘specials’. Oh, and it has 754bhp. Yes, seven hundred and fifty-four brake horsepower… Raw power, weight saving, titanium wheel bolts at a price that solicits a grimace. New aero devices, new ducts, reworked airflow management, thinner this and thinner that. It’s all there in the detail, reams of the stuff (see evo 272). As we’ve come to expect, Mclaren has left no strand of hidden carbonfibre unturned in its pursuit of a car that lives up to the Longtail moniker, which when you look at the back history is a very special lineage indeed. Just 57mm is the literal justification for the badge in this case, mainly (48mm) from the jutting new carbon front splitter.
From there, small vertical blades manage the airflow around the front and down the sides of the car, with Lmp1-style flat extensions behind the rear wheels to keep the wake from interfering with the airflow off the rear wing and diffuser. The latter is a part that makes the Mclaren engineers break into the cheekiest of grins; it meets the letter of the law on homologation, but you sense there’s not a millimetre they haven’t exploited. For a road car, it’s simply massive.
The rear spoiler now sits higher, further into the airstream, and this deeper blade, with a flip-up at the rear, rises as an air brake under heavy retardation. Most of the rear of the car is now virtually open, a circular mesh allowing heat out and saving weight. The V8 is somewhere between 720S and Senna spec, using the latter’s forged pistons and head gasket set-up. It produces a handy 590lb ft of torque, and the gear ratios are shorter for better acceleration too. The brake calipers from the Senna are standard, with the carbonsintered Senna discs an option; the wheels are exceptionally light, and there’s a bespoke Pirelli Trofeo R tyre as well. Even the glass is 0.8mm thinner for the windscreen and the side windows.
It must surely be the last day of summer. The forecast from here on in looks miserable, probably till around next May, but today Silverstone basks in 25deg C heat and long, melancholic autumnal shadows. I lower myself into the Senna bucket seat of my 765LT for the afternoon, and pull the five-point harness tight enough to feel the squeeze down below. Plugged into the intercom system that Mclaren has installed, I can almost feel the V8 more than I can hear it, a low-frequency rumble and crackle that fizzes through my body. I dare say the 4-litre V8 will sound, um, ‘workmanlike’ as usual, although the quad bazooka tailpipe treatment is said to give a nicer exhaust note.
I’m not sure there’ll be time to get much of an impression on that, just as the 765’s interior details are processed with one quick scan. It’s all pared back, Alcantara-clad, hard to the touch, businesslike. The view aft through the polycarbonate is of the letterbox variety but entirely adequate, framed by the compact scaffolding that’s part of the Clubsport set-up. The Mclaren tech gives the thumbs up to signal the pitlane is clear and with a click of the paddle for first gear the wheels are turning and we’re accelerating up the funnel that leads out of the Formula 1 pits and onto the circuit.
Mindful that tyres and brakes need some heat in them, I take it easy for the first few corners, but already the acceleration of the 765 on half throttle provokes an involuntary chuckle. It appears to acquire speed like a greased turkey down a rubbish chute, each gear firing through urgently, the nose of the car leaping for an apex; perhaps a little less steering is required.
It all starts to go a bit crazy on the second lap. Warmed through, and with your driver concentrating as hard as the old brainbox will allow, life seems to narrow into a tunnel of focus, where only the next braking point, apex and exit kerb have meaning. I’m on the International Circuit, hopping over the slightly awkward crest that connects the exit of Village with Chapel, and then heading onto the Hangar Straight. Damn that tricky off-camber exit; I want to get the 765 as straight as possible as soon as possible, but using all the width of the track and a little bit more helps, and we exit onto the straight in the meat of the powerband, in fourth.
What happens next, and at this point on every subsequent lap, is nothing short of miraculous. The 765 digs in and the revs rip upwards almost more quickly than I can register. Instinctively I pull the elongated right-hand paddle and the next cog is taken up in a blur: through fifth, click, into sixth, still surging ahead, almost without any resistance at all. Just where did the straight go? No sooner had the 765’s nose lasered onto the horizon than it seemed to be over it, and try as I might I just can’t recall anything in-between. A bridge? The Porsche Experience Centre on the left? A glimpse of the Aston Martin Tech Centre on the right? Not really, no. It was just exit, wham, brake – and a shrinking of the Hangar Straight like I’ve never experienced before. At 180mph.
The mighty Stowe right-hander is now very much upon us, and I hit that pedal hard with as much force as I dare. The 765 equipped with the Senna discs might not have the massive aero contribution like on the actual Senna car, but there’s that same feeling of colossal braking powers and superhuman resilience underfoot. So direct is the sensation that I momentarily visualise the sole of my trainer flattened against the disc itself, like in a cartoon, with sparks flying in all directions. This is the very beginning of the best thing about the 765. I don’t think you’d ever get used to the power – it’s probably around 250bhp more than the 720 GT3 racer with its air restrictors, for instance – but turning into Stowe, still at very high speed, the agility and transparency of the 765’s chassis is pretty damn exquisite, and even puts the performance into second place.
Even at these speeds the nose wants to bite into the apex, aided by finally releasing all braking effort. It holds on, through and out, back on the power, over the kerbing on the left and full bore until a very big stop for the slowest corner, the second-gear Vale left-hander. Here, the 765 brakes so hard there’s the slightest dance from the rear axle, not even enough to warrant a conscious steering correction, but merely the sensation that the car is losing speed so dramatically the front splitter might be peeling back the track surface like a giant wallpaper scraper. Lap after lap the 765 does this, with no discernible change in braking performance, feel or sound to betray any kind of brake fade.
As the laps reel off, across two sessions, we work through the more aggressive modes, finally peeling back the stability control. Now the 765 really comes alive, moving around more mid-corner if you want it to, rotating as much as you want, and oversteering under power almost on demand. Those Pirellis and the braking set-up seem unfazed by it all, and the laps disappear in a blur.
It’s a formidable introduction to driving the 765LT, but as bizarre as it feels to type this, perhaps the biggest achievement by the Mclaren engineers is to have made a 754bhp monster feel entirely controllable for us mere mortals, whatever level you want to drive it at, with always another layer of ability to discover as familiarity boosts confidence. That’s quite a trick. Although, not quite as trick as its apparent ability to shoot blue flames out the exhaust at night (‘40 centimetres,’ according to the engineers). We’ll do our best to investigate that in due course, naturally.
‘MCLAREN’S ENGINEERS HAVE MADE A MONSTER FEEL CONTROLLABLE FOR US MERE MORTALS’