They don’t believe in magic at the McLaren Technology Centre, McLaren’s
HQ in Woking, England. This gleaming building is a temple to science, a
place where hard data and exact measurements are the common language,
where the dark arts of magic, voodoo, Harry Potter spells and witchcraft have
absolutely no place in the conversation.
And yet, to the uninitiated, there’s definitely something supernatural
happening at McLaren. As the futurist and sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once
said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’
– and McLaren is pushing technology to the limit with its new 720S. This car
not only raises the bar in the supercar sector, introducing features that were
previously available only in a high-end hypercar, it also represents a major
advance for McLaren itself.
That’s right: the use of carbon and alloy in this car, its manipulation of the
air, the software algorithms whirring in its brains, they all go beyond even
what McLaren was capable of when the project was given the green light in
2013. Under the code name ‘P14’, the engineering team committed to targets
that were simply impossible at the time; then they found ways to achieve
them. As well as representing a new generation of Super Series (replacing
the outgoing 650S), this car also stands as a bold statement of McLaren’s
commitment to pioneering new ground.
It only seems magic, then, to the uninitiated – which is just a polite way of
saying someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. What’s the
opposite of an expert? An ‘inexpert’? Time, then, to demystify the 720S and
find out what alchemy McLaren has been up to over the last four years.
Rob Melville, McLaren Chief Designer, has made his arm disappear. It’s a
startling trick. He leant over the car’s sculptural side, and apparently inserted
his arm into the car.
“We wanted to create a car without any visible side air intakes,” he
explains. “That was very challenging, in terms of cooling the engine. The
answer was to ‘unpeel’ the car – we’ve literally created two skins for the
door.”
LEFT: THE INTERIOR IS ALL NEW,
and combines luxury materials with cuttingedge
technology. The Bridge of Weir leather
trim is an option. Note the way the dihedral
door opens out a section of the roof, vastly
improving access to the car
80 Pindara Magazine 2017