► Say hello to our McLaren 650S
► We pick up the Spider from McLaren
► Month one of six with the supercar
You have to hand it to them, they’re good. You could step from your train at Ascot station, stroll the 50 yards between the platform and the UK’s latest McLaren dealership and step through the door completely indifferent to Britain’s pre-eminent supercar maker, but five minutes later you’ll be considering a McLaren Qualified (approved used) 12C, buying the subtly branded weekend bag to slip into its nose and mentally re-decorating the garage at home with Can-Am orange walls, a print of Senna at ten-tenths in his MP4/4 on the wall and a polished stone floor so flawless Ron could check his hair in it.
Surreally I’m here to pick up a 650S Spider, mine for the next six months, but so distracting is this shrine to Bruce’s fast car legacy that I fear a half-hour job is going to consume the day. Opened earlier this year, McLaren Ascot glows with the same purposeful ambition evident in the Woking firm’s plans for global supremacy. Not all that long ago the 12C was the company’s first wholly McLaren car since the F1. In the four years since the 12C’s launch we’ve had a beautifully judged evolution, 650S, a couple of game-changing hybrid hypercars, P1 and P1 GTR, and more recently the awesome 675LT and aggressively priced 570S. At Ascot the team’s straining at the leash; evangelical about the product, keen to provide the kind of service the cars deserve and fired up by the new era of increased volume 570S will usher in.
Of course there’s time for a little of the past alongside the future, and at Ascot it’s all there in an artful collection of prints above the coffee table. The ’95 Le Mans-winning F1 GTR. Prost and Senna in Marlboro red and white at Monaco. The raging Can-Am cars. Fittipaldi’s Texaco M23. The Yardley M19. A monochrome shot of Lauda and Dennis on their way to the ’84 driver’s title with the MP4/2. The images speak of a glorious racing past, of enigmatic drivers, wondrous cars and sheer read-it-and-weep statistics. Stuff like eight constructor championships and 12 drivers’ titles in Formula One and an outright Le Mans win, with a GT car, at the first time of asking. An example of the remarkable F1 GTR sits in the showroom, an outrageously liveried pink-and-black Lark-sponsored car, part of the squad that brought home in the bacon in the ’96 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship. Window displays come no more magnetic.
Outside sits the Qualified stock, a rainbow range of 650S and 12C coupes and Spiders, with prices from ‘just’ £125,000. Qualified cars are inspected and prepared by McLaren technicians, sold with a 12-month warranty (you can upgrade to 24 months) and run the latest software upgrades. McLaren released several in the wake of the 12C’s initial launch, boosting power (from the original 12C coupe’s 592bhp to the Spider’s 617bhp across both variants), delivering a more intuitive and reliable version of the IRIS interface and bringing the 650S’s active aero functions to the 12C’s airbrake (auto-DRS at throttle openings of 80% or more, and angle adjustments to help stabilise the car when cresting sharp rises or braking hard). A 2012 12C coupe in McLaren orange catches my eye, at £126,950. I’d 4
struggle to raise a tenth of the asking price but, given the 12C’s rarity at fewer than 5000 units worldwide, and its importance as the first car of McLaren’s post-F1 renaissance, used buys surely come no smarter.
From the showroom a widescreen window lets you peek into the workshop, which is every bit as clean and as ordered as you’d imagine. Today – and I’m assured they’re not just for our benefit – not one but two P1s sit ready for expert attention. Ascot’s aftersales manager and hugely experienced McLaren spannerman Ben Bradford is as happy elbows-deep in a hybrid P1 as he is in the BMW-powered F1, which Ascot also service from time to time. Up on another ramp a 12C undergoes a routine service, its drag-cheating fully faired floor clear to see. And there, undergoing final checks, is our 650S Spider.
Despite the distractions, I spot it immediately. And while I’d love to be able to say I play it cool as a cucumber, acknowledging the car with a polite smile before getting down to the paperwork with sales executive Pete Sanderson, the truth is my face lights up like I’ve just been dealt a royal flush, my heart thuds in my chest like a cricket bat in a washing machine and my imagination immediately vaults ahead to a summer of roof-down bliss, sun-kissed trackdays and the higher state of being that comes with using a machine of such prodigious talent as an everyday tool.
Paperwork signed, it’s out to the car for a briefing. Gone is the 12C’s Jedi hand-swipe door release, replaced by an altogether easier, if less theatrical, rubber button. Up lifts the butterfly door on its perfectly judged strut and in I slide, getting comfortable in a car I’ll soon be hopping in and out of as a matter of routine. Wide sills mean there’s an art to roof-up entry, but getting in and out with the roof open is as easy as dropping into a 641bhp bathtub.
Pull the door shut, tug on the smaller stalk beneath the indicator for comfort entry and the seat whirs back into position. Far from feeling cool and standoffish, the cockpit’s beautifully hewn minimalism is welcoming. The steering wheel is free of buttons. Behind it the cast metal indicator lever and gearshift paddle are delightfully cool and solid to the touch. The IRIS system is as intuitive as its screen is clear. With faultless logic, each occupant gets their own climate controls, on their respective door. And on the centre console you’re drawn to the Active Dynamics panel, the key to the 650S’s versatility. Start the car and Active Dynamics default to the Handling and Powertrain to Normal, the safest of the three settings, regardless of the position of the switch. Push the Active button and the three-position switches go live, as do the Aero (activates the rear wing/airbrake’s active aero) and Manual buttons (switches from auto shifting to manual) within them. Semi-recumbent in the beautifully contoured seats, elegant wheel rim grasped in sweaty paws, this finally feels real.
Running the 650S for six months is the McLaren’s shot at righting a few wrongs. The car launched to critical acclaim and very nearly won our sports car giant test last year. In the final reckoning the 650S Spider claimed bronze, losing out to the Porsche Cayman GTS’s unrivalled value for money and the Ferrari 458 Speciale’s raw, heart-rending brilliance. But the judges raved about the McLaren’s broader remit, its Lotus-esque ride and handling and its mighty torque-rich twin-turbo engine. No-one would dream of running a 458 Speciale as an everyday car, but with its greater refinement, flawless ergonomics and versatile Proactive suspension, the 650S promises to be a supercar you can use like a supermini. Testing that promise is going to be quite a privilege.
With the Nav set to a tasty but ludicrously circuitous route home I click into first and, with a blare of rich V8 noise, pull gently onto the road and into an ordinary Monday afternoon, the McLaren at once as civilised as a Mercedes and as special as a Veyron. I could be very happy here.
Coupe or Spider?
Go coupe and you pay less for a lighter car. Base price is £198k for the coupe and £215,520 for the Spider. While the roof isn’t part of the carbonfibre tub, and therefore needn’t be compensated for structurally in the Spider, the folding hardtop adds 40kg, or half a passenger. Yes that weight’s carried high, but 1370kg is a trifle when you’ve 641bhp and 500lb ft to move it.
Go Spider and you also sacrifice a little internal storage space; the coupe boasts a handy shelf behind the seats. But the appeal of the Spider is obvious. Dropping the roof adds another dimension to the 650S’s driving appeal for little tangible dynamic penalty, and the car’s arguably a more striking shape with the roof down. 80% of the 650Ss McLaren sold last year were Spiders.
How we specced our 650S
Storm grey with orange calipers: More extrovert colours are available but metallic Storm Grey (a £1820 special colour) suits the 650S. An Elite shade costs £4090, orange calipers a further £910.
Sports exhaust: We spent £4790 on the sports exhaust to silence the turbo haters. No power increase but it saves weight and pumps up the volume. Drop the rear window!
Heated memory seats, Semi-Aniline leather: Three memory pre-sets and the heat to make every day a roof-down day for £2730. Semi-Aniline Sports option replaces alcantara with perforated leather (£2730).
Diamond cut wheels: A £1550 finish option on the standard forged five-spoke wheels, for a flash of, er, flash. This being England, we’ve swapped standard P-Zero Corsas for P-Zeros.
Carbonfibre everything: We’ve broken up the expanses of grey bodywork with carbon sills (£2680), front air dam/rear bumper (part of an £8470 package) and wheelarches (£2280).
Parking sensors and camera: General visibility is good, but you’d have to be braver than us to reverse without these face-saving trinkets (£1030 for the camera; £1640 the sensors).
Logbook: McLaren 650S Spider
Engine: 3799cc twin-turbo V8, 641bhp @ 7250rpm, 500lb ft @ 6000rpm
Gearbox: 7-speed auto with paddleshift
Stats: 3.0sec 0-62mph, 204mph
Price: £215,520
As tested: £251,080
Miles this month: 575
Total miles: 575
Our mpg: 17.1
Official mpg: 24.1
Fuel this month: £178.34
Extra costs: £0