2021 McLaren GT
Discussion
AB said:
BTCC_racer said:
lovely motor!
I used to work for a company in that square
Infact that exact spot was where I parked my Alpina or ISF when I came on site.
Hamilton Square, brilliant, my offices are 30 seconds from there, I hope to see this around and about over the summer I used to work for a company in that square
Infact that exact spot was where I parked my Alpina or ISF when I came on site.
I use to see a lovely E92 M3 parked around the side of Hamilton square.
I’ll be meeting up with old colleagues over the summer.
Nice car - something special about mclarens.
Update time!
I am coming up to about 600 miles driven now which is plenty of time to get to know things on a better level than any test drive could give you. I could write a very long post here but I will try to keep it brief.
I am still getting used to the way the numbers on the speedo increase. On paper and certainly at lower speeds it shouldn’t be all that different to the M5 - but it is. Significantly. It doesn’t actually feel all that much faster in a strange sort of way except at full throttle beyond 6k rpm - but if I accelerate so that I feel like I’m getting shoved at about the same rate as I did in the M5 and actually look at the speedo, it is absolutely insane how much faster I am travelling. I need to completely recalibrate my senses as I cannot yet quite fathom the immediacy with which big speeds appear on the dashboard. I think the refinement of it all helps mask a significant chunk of the speed which I wasn’t expecting at all.
The steering is sublime and gets better the more I get used to it. Initially, to me it felt a bit like it weighted up too quickly and made the car feel “heavy” but that’s just years in FR cars and compromised steering to train out of my brain. I need to remember my previous mid-engine car ownership experience and consciously apply it - and when I do I am very much rewarded. It is a total joy to actively thread down a country lane at legal speeds (or indeed at any speed).
The ride is superb. I don’t mean “for a McLaren” or “for a sporty car” I mean in general, compared to almost anything it is eerily good. It is definitely better than anything else I was looking at, better than the M5 and probably on par with the Range Rover. Not as quiet by a long chalk but in pure physical comfort terms it is sensational. How they’ve done it I don’t know but it is magical to be in a car like this driving down cobbled streets in total comfort.
Finally, the measure of customer service is rarely when buying something and invariably when things go wrong does the truth of an organisation emerge. I have noticed a slight (and I do mean slight) clicking when I open the driver side door. The passenger side is silent so I put a call in to the dealer to ask if it is normal/expected for such a noise to be there. They offered me a slot straight away to come down and demonstrate the noise to them and get an opinion on it. I only had to open the door once for them to confirm that no, the noise is not normal. The master technician said it would be only the second time he’d seen the issue in his many years of working on these cars and the gas strut needs to be replaced. While I was there I also asked him about a couple of other absolutely minuscule items I had noticed (like the frunk being more difficult to close than I anticipated but only when it is a cold day) and all of them were acknowledged, understood, diagnosed and are being addressed without question. Frankly I wouldn’t have even bothered with anything so trivial on any previous car I’ve owned but they are bending over backwards to help as they want the cars to be absolutely perfect. The entire experience was superb and exactly the opposite of what The Internet would have you believe about dealing with warranty stuff at McLaren.
I am coming up to about 600 miles driven now which is plenty of time to get to know things on a better level than any test drive could give you. I could write a very long post here but I will try to keep it brief.
I am still getting used to the way the numbers on the speedo increase. On paper and certainly at lower speeds it shouldn’t be all that different to the M5 - but it is. Significantly. It doesn’t actually feel all that much faster in a strange sort of way except at full throttle beyond 6k rpm - but if I accelerate so that I feel like I’m getting shoved at about the same rate as I did in the M5 and actually look at the speedo, it is absolutely insane how much faster I am travelling. I need to completely recalibrate my senses as I cannot yet quite fathom the immediacy with which big speeds appear on the dashboard. I think the refinement of it all helps mask a significant chunk of the speed which I wasn’t expecting at all.
The steering is sublime and gets better the more I get used to it. Initially, to me it felt a bit like it weighted up too quickly and made the car feel “heavy” but that’s just years in FR cars and compromised steering to train out of my brain. I need to remember my previous mid-engine car ownership experience and consciously apply it - and when I do I am very much rewarded. It is a total joy to actively thread down a country lane at legal speeds (or indeed at any speed).
The ride is superb. I don’t mean “for a McLaren” or “for a sporty car” I mean in general, compared to almost anything it is eerily good. It is definitely better than anything else I was looking at, better than the M5 and probably on par with the Range Rover. Not as quiet by a long chalk but in pure physical comfort terms it is sensational. How they’ve done it I don’t know but it is magical to be in a car like this driving down cobbled streets in total comfort.
Finally, the measure of customer service is rarely when buying something and invariably when things go wrong does the truth of an organisation emerge. I have noticed a slight (and I do mean slight) clicking when I open the driver side door. The passenger side is silent so I put a call in to the dealer to ask if it is normal/expected for such a noise to be there. They offered me a slot straight away to come down and demonstrate the noise to them and get an opinion on it. I only had to open the door once for them to confirm that no, the noise is not normal. The master technician said it would be only the second time he’d seen the issue in his many years of working on these cars and the gas strut needs to be replaced. While I was there I also asked him about a couple of other absolutely minuscule items I had noticed (like the frunk being more difficult to close than I anticipated but only when it is a cold day) and all of them were acknowledged, understood, diagnosed and are being addressed without question. Frankly I wouldn’t have even bothered with anything so trivial on any previous car I’ve owned but they are bending over backwards to help as they want the cars to be absolutely perfect. The entire experience was superb and exactly the opposite of what The Internet would have you believe about dealing with warranty stuff at McLaren.
DRZ said:
Update time!
I am coming up to about 600 miles driven now which is plenty of time to get to know things on a better level than any test drive could give you. I could write a very long post here but I will try to keep it brief.
I am still getting used to the way the numbers on the speedo increase. On paper and certainly at lower speeds it shouldn’t be all that different to the M5 - but it is. Significantly. It doesn’t actually feel all that much faster in a strange sort of way except at full throttle beyond 6k rpm - but if I accelerate so that I feel like I’m getting shoved at about the same rate as I did in the M5 and actually look at the speedo, it is absolutely insane how much faster I am travelling. I need to completely recalibrate my senses as I cannot yet quite fathom the immediacy with which big speeds appear on the dashboard. I think the refinement of it all helps mask a significant chunk of the speed which I wasn’t expecting at all.
The steering is sublime and gets better the more I get used to it. Initially, to me it felt a bit like it weighted up too quickly and made the car feel “heavy” but that’s just years in FR cars and compromised steering to train out of my brain. I need to remember my previous mid-engine car ownership experience and consciously apply it - and when I do I am very much rewarded. It is a total joy to actively thread down a country lane at legal speeds (or indeed at any speed).
The ride is superb. I don’t mean “for a McLaren” or “for a sporty car” I mean in general, compared to almost anything it is eerily good. It is definitely better than anything else I was looking at, better than the M5 and probably on par with the Range Rover. Not as quiet by a long chalk but in pure physical comfort terms it is sensational. How they’ve done it I don’t know but it is magical to be in a car like this driving down cobbled streets in total comfort.
Finally, the measure of customer service is rarely when buying something and invariably when things go wrong does the truth of an organisation emerge. I have noticed a slight (and I do mean slight) clicking when I open the driver side door. The passenger side is silent so I put a call in to the dealer to ask if it is normal/expected for such a noise to be there. They offered me a slot straight away to come down and demonstrate the noise to them and get an opinion on it. I only had to open the door once for them to confirm that no, the noise is not normal. The master technician said it would be only the second time he’d seen the issue in his many years of working on these cars and the gas strut needs to be replaced. While I was there I also asked him about a couple of other absolutely minuscule items I had noticed (like the frunk being more difficult to close than I anticipated but only when it is a cold day) and all of them were acknowledged, understood, diagnosed and are being addressed without question. Frankly I wouldn’t have even bothered with anything so trivial on any previous car I’ve owned but they are bending over backwards to help as they want the cars to be absolutely perfect. The entire experience was superb and exactly the opposite of what The Internet would have you believe about dealing with warranty stuff at McLaren.
Thank you for the update. It's lovely to hear real life ownership experiences.I am coming up to about 600 miles driven now which is plenty of time to get to know things on a better level than any test drive could give you. I could write a very long post here but I will try to keep it brief.
I am still getting used to the way the numbers on the speedo increase. On paper and certainly at lower speeds it shouldn’t be all that different to the M5 - but it is. Significantly. It doesn’t actually feel all that much faster in a strange sort of way except at full throttle beyond 6k rpm - but if I accelerate so that I feel like I’m getting shoved at about the same rate as I did in the M5 and actually look at the speedo, it is absolutely insane how much faster I am travelling. I need to completely recalibrate my senses as I cannot yet quite fathom the immediacy with which big speeds appear on the dashboard. I think the refinement of it all helps mask a significant chunk of the speed which I wasn’t expecting at all.
The steering is sublime and gets better the more I get used to it. Initially, to me it felt a bit like it weighted up too quickly and made the car feel “heavy” but that’s just years in FR cars and compromised steering to train out of my brain. I need to remember my previous mid-engine car ownership experience and consciously apply it - and when I do I am very much rewarded. It is a total joy to actively thread down a country lane at legal speeds (or indeed at any speed).
The ride is superb. I don’t mean “for a McLaren” or “for a sporty car” I mean in general, compared to almost anything it is eerily good. It is definitely better than anything else I was looking at, better than the M5 and probably on par with the Range Rover. Not as quiet by a long chalk but in pure physical comfort terms it is sensational. How they’ve done it I don’t know but it is magical to be in a car like this driving down cobbled streets in total comfort.
Finally, the measure of customer service is rarely when buying something and invariably when things go wrong does the truth of an organisation emerge. I have noticed a slight (and I do mean slight) clicking when I open the driver side door. The passenger side is silent so I put a call in to the dealer to ask if it is normal/expected for such a noise to be there. They offered me a slot straight away to come down and demonstrate the noise to them and get an opinion on it. I only had to open the door once for them to confirm that no, the noise is not normal. The master technician said it would be only the second time he’d seen the issue in his many years of working on these cars and the gas strut needs to be replaced. While I was there I also asked him about a couple of other absolutely minuscule items I had noticed (like the frunk being more difficult to close than I anticipated but only when it is a cold day) and all of them were acknowledged, understood, diagnosed and are being addressed without question. Frankly I wouldn’t have even bothered with anything so trivial on any previous car I’ve owned but they are bending over backwards to help as they want the cars to be absolutely perfect. The entire experience was superb and exactly the opposite of what The Internet would have you believe about dealing with warranty stuff at McLaren.
I think for the acceleration compared to the M5, it's the fact that you are much lower down in the GT, cossetted in the hugging seats that the sensation feels no more than the M5. In the M5, a family sized heavy saloon, you are higher up with a less balanced set up, get a bigger feel of "danger" as you haul that weight into the distance. Perhaps that's why the sensation is the same except the much higher speed in the GT.
From what I've read on the forum on dealership services, it does seem hit or miss. Some dealerships seem appalling while there are a few which seem to offer Lexus level of attention to detail. It looks like you have the latter and all the better for it. Happy days!
As promised elsewhere, here is a mini review of my courtesy car, a 2022 McLaren 720S!
As mentioned, the GT has a few little things that need to be sorted so while they are attending to that I have use of this 720S. I did shortlist a 720S Luxury but decided it was a compromise too far from what I needed the car to do so this is a great opportunity to really see what life would have been like had I gone the other way.
This car is in an interesting spec and not one I personally would have gone for myself but they did it for a display of "you can have the car configured any way you want if your pockets are deep enough" I think. It is McLaren Orange (not Papaya Spark like my car) with a dark grey metallic frunk lid, spoiler and rear bumper with a dark blue stripe running front to back down the middle of the car. There are other dark blue bits here and there. I'll take some better pictures of the front when I get some time and you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about. The interior has the manual seats which are not especially uncomfortable but neither are they comfortable. They hold you well enough in the right places but they are very firm. I certainly prefer the comfy electric memory seats in my GT!
Speaking of things that are better in the GT, the infotainment and screens are much better than in the 720S. I honestly don't think I could live with the system in the 720S, it is pretty much as bad as the system in my Dad's Mitsubishi Outlander. The screens are visibly dated by any modern standard and coming from the GT it is immediately quite noticeable. With this being a 2022 car I thought they might have filtered the newer screen tech into the parts bin for the 720S but no. Audio is still B&W in this car but it is different, the speakers look smaller and it is either not quite as good or the extra road noise of the 720S makes it harder to hear music when on the move. Other than that, despite McLaren's claims the GT cabin is roomier and so on, it isn't. Or at least not in any meaningful way. My head is about 1.5cm from the roof in the GT and it is about 4cm from the roof in the 720S which probably helps that feel. Width is not noticeable inside the cabin but on the road the 720S definitely feels narrower.
Performance is stratospheric. As fast as the GT is, this is on another level entirely. I was convinced by my test drive that the 720S was too much car to be responsibly enjoyed on UK public roads and this extended experience is just confirming it. I know the measured numbers say the 720S is 7.8s to 124mph and the GT is 9.0 but it feels at least 50% faster than the GT even if it isn't. Part of that is down to how refined the GT is in comparison, part of it is the extra 100bhp, part of it is the way the power is delivered. Part of it might be McLaren heavily sandbagging the performance claims. Whatever the recipe might be, the overall impression is of a car that is sensationally fast. I truly cannot begin to convey in words the reality of what this is like to someone who hasn't experienced it for themselves. I don't think I have driven anything on the road quite as potent as this car. For reference, the new M5cs does 0-124mph in 10.4s, a Ferrari F40 did it in about 11s and the "holy trinity" hypercars were all just under 7s. Rapid.
Noise is seemingly always a "thing" when people talk about McLaren. The 720S sounds very different to the GT in tone and loudness and I think overall it is a bit more brash. I love how in-your-face the noise is, it is a lot higher pitched than the GT which is more of a baritone sound. My GT has the optional sports exhaust and I think this 720S has one too and I would say that the 720S in its quietest mode is as loud as the GT in Sport. Full chat in the 720S is a wonderful noise to my ears. No, it isn't a Ferrari V12 or anything like it but it is still a supercar soundtrack to relish while we still can!
Overall, very happy with it as a courtesy car (but come on, how could I not be?!). I do think I've made the right call buying the GT for what I want from a car plus it won't ruin every other car for me in terms of performance like a 720S long term would...
As mentioned, the GT has a few little things that need to be sorted so while they are attending to that I have use of this 720S. I did shortlist a 720S Luxury but decided it was a compromise too far from what I needed the car to do so this is a great opportunity to really see what life would have been like had I gone the other way.
This car is in an interesting spec and not one I personally would have gone for myself but they did it for a display of "you can have the car configured any way you want if your pockets are deep enough" I think. It is McLaren Orange (not Papaya Spark like my car) with a dark grey metallic frunk lid, spoiler and rear bumper with a dark blue stripe running front to back down the middle of the car. There are other dark blue bits here and there. I'll take some better pictures of the front when I get some time and you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about. The interior has the manual seats which are not especially uncomfortable but neither are they comfortable. They hold you well enough in the right places but they are very firm. I certainly prefer the comfy electric memory seats in my GT!
Speaking of things that are better in the GT, the infotainment and screens are much better than in the 720S. I honestly don't think I could live with the system in the 720S, it is pretty much as bad as the system in my Dad's Mitsubishi Outlander. The screens are visibly dated by any modern standard and coming from the GT it is immediately quite noticeable. With this being a 2022 car I thought they might have filtered the newer screen tech into the parts bin for the 720S but no. Audio is still B&W in this car but it is different, the speakers look smaller and it is either not quite as good or the extra road noise of the 720S makes it harder to hear music when on the move. Other than that, despite McLaren's claims the GT cabin is roomier and so on, it isn't. Or at least not in any meaningful way. My head is about 1.5cm from the roof in the GT and it is about 4cm from the roof in the 720S which probably helps that feel. Width is not noticeable inside the cabin but on the road the 720S definitely feels narrower.
Performance is stratospheric. As fast as the GT is, this is on another level entirely. I was convinced by my test drive that the 720S was too much car to be responsibly enjoyed on UK public roads and this extended experience is just confirming it. I know the measured numbers say the 720S is 7.8s to 124mph and the GT is 9.0 but it feels at least 50% faster than the GT even if it isn't. Part of that is down to how refined the GT is in comparison, part of it is the extra 100bhp, part of it is the way the power is delivered. Part of it might be McLaren heavily sandbagging the performance claims. Whatever the recipe might be, the overall impression is of a car that is sensationally fast. I truly cannot begin to convey in words the reality of what this is like to someone who hasn't experienced it for themselves. I don't think I have driven anything on the road quite as potent as this car. For reference, the new M5cs does 0-124mph in 10.4s, a Ferrari F40 did it in about 11s and the "holy trinity" hypercars were all just under 7s. Rapid.
Noise is seemingly always a "thing" when people talk about McLaren. The 720S sounds very different to the GT in tone and loudness and I think overall it is a bit more brash. I love how in-your-face the noise is, it is a lot higher pitched than the GT which is more of a baritone sound. My GT has the optional sports exhaust and I think this 720S has one too and I would say that the 720S in its quietest mode is as loud as the GT in Sport. Full chat in the 720S is a wonderful noise to my ears. No, it isn't a Ferrari V12 or anything like it but it is still a supercar soundtrack to relish while we still can!
Overall, very happy with it as a courtesy car (but come on, how could I not be?!). I do think I've made the right call buying the GT for what I want from a car plus it won't ruin every other car for me in terms of performance like a 720S long term would...
DRZ said:
brilliantly explained first hand feedback comparing 720S to GT...
Thank you for that fantastic write up, giving mere mortals like myself a glimpse into this sort of thing to be able to fantasise. This was well written like an article in EVO from Richard Meaden or Henry Catchpole.Much appreciated insight
Enjoy
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