Who are you, Supercar Driver? And what is it like to be you?
Do you have your supercar shipped to the Canary Islands and drive it up to the top of an ancient volcano? Do you eat lunch there above the clouds? Do you lounge at the Ritz-Carlton’s seaside bar in Tenerife? How many is the minimum number of Michelin stars for a restaurant at which you will deign to dine, or do you prefer McDonald’s? Do you indulge curious onlookers with friendly chat about your new, loud, red McLaren or Ferrari and Lamborghini? What is it like to live with a supercar in your life?
I wonder if supercars are like puppies. Is it better when a friend owns one? You can borrow it, play with it, take it around the park and then, when it leaves a puddle of fluid somewhere it shouldn’t, you can simply give it back.
For the few hours or few days car critics have the keys to such a shiny new toy, they get a voyeuristic glimpse of what it’s like to be you, Mr. or Ms. Supercar Driver. But the critics don’t really know. Surely, it must be different to drive a thing when you’re the one writing the cheque for $200,000 or $400,000 or $2.4-million? Paying the insurance, parallel parking, opening and closing the up-swinging doors day-in, day-out. Is it still special? Do you worry about every new rattle or squeak? Do you even hear it?
You might be tempted by this new McLaren, Supercar Driver, because it is meant to be a fully house-trained supercar, well-behaved and mild mannered. It will not bark at passersby. It’s called the 570GT and, if that doesn’t mean much to you, I don’t blame you. McLaren Automotive – a company which, in its current incarnation, has only been making cars since 2011 – is churning out mid-engined, carbon-fibre masterpieces so quick it’s hard to keep track of them. There’s the 540C (entry-level exotica), 570S (faster, sportier), 650S (faster still), 675LT and LT Spider (race cars for the road), and the P1 and P1 GTR, which, sorry, are sold out. The dull alpha-numeric nomenclature doesn’t help, but what would you expect from the car company Ron Dennis built, the man whose Formula One team names its cars MP4-29, MP4-30 and so on.
The new 570GT starts at $236,400 and slots into the top of McLaren’s entry-level Sport Series lineup. It’s a McLaren you can have for Porsche Turbo S money, Audi R8 V10 money, and it’s so much more exotic than both. The GT’s option list includes $22,000 in extra carbon-fibre bits.
The 570GT is the “practical” McLaren. Its main distinguishing feature from the 570S is a restyled rear which incorporates a glass hatchback that opens to the side just like the one on the Jaguar E-Type. There’s a tie-down system in the McLaren’s leather-lined cubby to hold your wicker picnic basket from Fortnum & Mason. And yes, because the engine’s in the back, the real trunk is in the front, but you’d better pack light – think carry-on luggage. “Practical” only goes so far when applied to a supercar.
What’s it like to drive? At 2.4 kilometres above sea level, on top of a mountain in Tenerife, the air is thin, robbing the GT’s twin-turbo V-8 of power. At that altitude, the engine loses roughly 130 horsepower – a whole Toyota Corolla – but because the McLaren had 562 horsepower to begin with, and weighs just 1,350 kilograms (dry), it still flies – accelerating like the mountain wasn’t there.
The view from the cabin is appropriately unique. Everything is glass, even the roof. It’s like being in some alien greenhouse designed by James Cameron.
The suspension is softer than on McLaren’s other supercars, and the engineers worked to lessen the noise and vibration that filters into the cabin. The GT rides on special Pirelli tires that are supposed to make them quieter. The exhaust note on the 570S could get tedious in a long cruise. Not so with the muted hum of GT. Has it lost its edge? No. On the road, it sacrifices nothing in terms of performance to gain some manners.
A good choice, then, for Mr. or Ms. Supercar Driver to use on a daily basis, perhaps? But do they worry that a single rear tire costs $700, plus fitting, or that the first-year annual service bill will be roughly $1,500?
“Every owner is different,” Jonathan Bada says via e-mail. He is the service manager at McLaren Toronto, one of two dealerships in the country. “I have clients who drive the car any chance the sun is out and put on 12,000 km in one year or more sometimes. A lot of the cars see track time. I have some clients who don’t drive them very much at all. There are early 12Cs that are sitting in collections with 500 km on them.”
A supercar dealership is not like other dealerships. Bada’s shop provides complimentary pickup and delivery of your McLaren. He personally inspects every car before it leaves.
“All my clients have my cell phone number and are welcome to call me any time,” he says.
So, what’s it like to be you, Supercar Driver? Very good, it seems. The ownership experience could be as painless as you like, provided you can fund it. You wouldn’t want try to save a buck buying anonymous eBay parts. You could drive your exotic new supercar every day – at least, you could with the civilized 570GT. You can even get snow tires for those fat 20-inch rims. But do you worry about depreciation? Or does it not matter because you’ll just flip this supercar for a newer, faster, shinier model next year? It’s hard to keep up with you, Supercar Driver.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.
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