Has the time finally come for a McLaren 540C?

Woking's attempt at 'attainable' never really worked at £126k - what about for little more than half that?

While McLaren ought to be riding high at the overwhelmingly positive reception that greeted the new W1 last month, it plainly cannot sit on its laurels. Indeed, it would do well to upturn them and fashion them into a life raft: the water ahead looks perilously choppy. When it revealed the new 788HS ahead of FOS - drawing the long-running Super Series to a close - the firm again reiterated that while one door was closing, another would imminently be opened. Behind that door is said to be a next-generation lineup fit for a fast-approaching new decade: expect electrification and models that don’t all look like conventional mid-engined supercars to feature heavily.

Of course, the peril (if we’re putting our finger on just one aspect) is that the market doesn’t appear to be done with conventional mid-engined supercars at all. In fact, were McLaren to launch something very much like the 540C today - i.e. something with a high-revving, 540hp twin-turbo V8 and a sub 1.5-tonne kerbweight - it would likely be lauded by some observers as precisely the sort of antidote to overweight, overwrought, overpowered supercars that have proliferated this decade. And at £126k, some buyers would doubtless fall on it like rabid dogs.

Back in 2015, they were a little more circumspect. Commenters on the original PH story were already complaining about finding ‘it hard to keep track of the lineup’, a point that frankly gets straight to the heart of McLaren’s failure to properly distinguish the entry-level variant from its siblings. The whole point of the exercise was obviously to better rival the corresponding 911 Turbo - but Porsche had spent decades refining its flagship so that it filled out an instantly understandable niche; lopping 30hp and 44lb ft of torque off the 570S’s output was hardly a compelling alternative to status-conscious customers.

Plainly, it has done the 540C no favours later in life, either. This one from 2017, admittedly not off to the finest start in Metallic White, but still with only 20k accrued by a single previous owner - and for sale at HR Owen - is available for £69,950. Less, it must be said, than the 12Cs that typically prop up McLaren’s presence in the classifieds. The cheapest 570S, with similar miles on the clock, will only set you back around £5k more. Back at launch, the difference in starting price was more like £20k.

Still, as ever, someone else’s loss is another’s gain. And McLaren’s contention at the time - that you were still getting a lot of carbon-tubbed, super-fast car for your money - rings doubly true now at little more than half the original cost. After all, this is the sort of money that buys you a nicely specced Cayman 718 GTS; a lovely thing in its own right, but not the car to get you to 124mph in 10.5 seconds, nor 199mph. In handling terms, the 540C is on another, even more distant planet.

Naturally, that argument won’t persuade everyone to choose a decade-old McLaren over a much newer and more practical Porsche. But we’re still talking about a car with sensible mileage, a restrained colour scheme, useful options and an MOT trail that suggests concerted real-world use rather than ceremonial exercise. That McLaren will not be building anything exactly like it again is perhaps by the by (because no other supercar maker with aspirations of long-term survival will be either), but it undeniably harks back to a time when the firm was confident about what precisely made a good car. Nothing we’ve driven since suggests it was far wide of the mark.

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Robertb

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