Push the starter button and the 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 blasts itself awake, then settles into a high and anxious idle. Beneath the 1,400 rpm exhaust note you can detect more squealing (the pump for the electro-hydraulic steering, I suspect) and yet more whirring. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were in for a punishing ride in a high-strung car keyed up to within an inch of its life.
Don’t worry: The mechanical butterflies evaporate as soon as the car gets underway. In fact, assuming you can put any fears about curbing the wheels out of your mind, the 720S is an improbably easy and comfortable car to drive (all things considered). The only thing about it that could be described as brutal is its straight-line acceleration, which actually makes my ears pop.
Even the ride is easy to live with, considering that we’re talking about a supercar. The 720S Spider is no tourer; it remains board-stiff, but it handles road imperfections with dignity. I find it more comfortable on the roads around Detroit than, say, the Mercedes-AMG GT-C.
This connection goes a long way towards putting me at ease when driving an unfamiliar car, especially when it’s a six-figure high-test exotic that feels a mile wide when you first slide behind the wheel and into its low, low seats.
Basically, if you’re working toward the time-honored objective of going fast, making a lot of noise and looking great while doing it, I can’t think of any meaningful reason not to get the Spider. The coupe is hardly conservative, but the drop-top gives you that extra bit of flair — and McLaren has engineered it such that you don’t have to give up its signature swan-wing dihedral doors.
However, though the extra sun is always nice, the open-air experience doesn’t reveal much additional complexity in the engine note. This motor rips; you will never want for power. As a means to an end, there’s nothing to complain about. Endless acceleration is never more than a tap of the throttle and another tap (or two, or maybe three if you’re about to drive through a tunnel) of the paddle shifter away.
But as with previous McLaren V8s, the gas pedal somehow makes things louder without adding any intensity or urgency. You can certainly hear that more clearly here (read: it’s even louder), with the top down or the rear glass retracted. It doesn’t drone, but it sure doesn’t sing like a Ferrari V8 or a naturally aspirated V10.
Maybe your response, after hearing about the 720S Spider and how good it is, is to shrug. I get it; a car like this McLaren — which you will almost certainly never own, and might never even see an example of on the road — can feel totally irrelevant. Of course it’s good, the jaded part of you says. At north of $400,000, it had damn well better be.
Well, yeah; that’s totally fair. But this is a really fantastic machine, especially in how it uses so much technology to achieve such a natural feel — long gone is the notion of the McLaren as a science experiment — and I’m not so cynical that I can’t marvel at it existing in the first place.
Consider: The fastest lap of the 1950 Indianapolis 500, the first year for which the record was officially kept, was 128.995 mph. The 720S Spider loafs along lazily at 100 and does 212 mph max (202 with the top down).
In terms of technological advancement, this run is perhaps not as impressive as going from the Wright Flyer to the Moon in six and a half decades. But the mind-blower is that the McLaren isn’t a purpose-built Indy 500 roadster: It’s just a car! You can decide to take it for a spin, head out to the garage and be off within 30 seconds, no arcane starting and warmup procedure needed. It demands about as much regular maintenance as the family car did a half century ago, not a pit crew. It’s balanced enough, and packs just enough relatively unobtrusive safety tech, to make its 710 hp something other than a death wish for the even the most mediocre drivers.
The 720S Spider does things that would have seemed all but impossible on a production car a few short decades ago, and it does them with such confidence that it’s easy to take it all for granted. In that sense, at least, it’s a victim of its own success. It makes the whole supercar thing look too easy. You ever seen someone try to back up a Countach? You had to be a special sort of determined idiot to want to drive one of those back in the day. Now you just need a lot of money to enjoy its modern equivalents, this car among them.
I don’t know if all that makes it a bargain at roughly $411,300 as-tested, but I have a lot of respect for what McLaren is doing regardless of the price.
When people find out what I do for a living and ask me what my favorite new car is, I tell them it’s the 720S coupe — it has been since I drove it a few years ago. I’ve never hesitated, but now I may have to, if only for a second. Depending on my mood, or the weather, the 720S Spider might just have moved into the top spot.
Source: Autoweek