Drive Impressions: McLaren 570S
Discussion
[Over the past few years, I've owned or hired a variety of supercars. I wrote this review after a recent week with a 570S; thought I'd share it here in case anyone's contemplating it for purchase.]
Part of you wonders what'd happen if Sergey Brin and Elizabeth Hurley birthed a sports car. Your understandable curiosity has an answer, and it comes from England.
The McLaren 570S is plenty fast by supercar standards... but nowhere near the fastest. It's durably pretty, not outrageously gorgeous. It's the car Tony Stark would drive if those movies were recommissioned today.
It's also the first time in a long time that I've seriously contemplated buying a sports car after driving it. And I've driven a fair amount of fast cars.
McLaren puts the same 3.8L twin-turbo V8 in everything, from the "entry level" 540C, considered too slow to be sold in the US (!), all the way through to the granddaddy P1.
Never mind that a few thousand dollars buys you a chipped upgrade to 650S-level performance. Even a detuned 562 HP is nothing to scoff at, as it's more than sufficient to make your next destination forcibly jail or a hospital.
0-60 in 2.9 seconds is not the point. The point is 70-130, which I swear to you arrives with such mind-bending alacrity that I refuse to spend any more time incompetently attempting to conjure appropriate words. Did you know the muscles in the front of your neck could get sore? I didn't.
As with all McLarens, the engine has a muted, competent urgency which, though consistent with the car's holistic personality, is staidly unexceptional. It did best with the windows down through a long tunnel on my way to Pacifica... but a great engine wouldn't require so many qualifiers. If engine sounds are your thing, you'll want at least the Spyder.
The 570S's 3,186 lb. curb weight is:
The zero on my keyboard is not misfiring. Unless you're wholly unfamiliar with driving dynamics and have instead wandered deep into this review trying to pass time before a delayed flight, little more needs be said.
This car drives amazingly, exceptionally well. It outclasses all road cars in its price range for driving dynamics. It is undoubtedly the most performance value you can get if you're in the R8 / Turbo S / NSX market.
Beyond the steering, let me give just one example: the pedals. Their spacing and positioning are perfect, and the feel of the pedals is absolutely sublime. The brakes require substantial progressive pressure, which makes modulation of threshold braking remarkably easy. If you've driven a wide variety of cars, especially on and off track, you'll know how rare it is to find a car where the pedals each feel perfect. This car's pedals are better than any I've experienced.
These days it's largely pointless to comment on the speed of paddle-shifted dual-clutch transmissions. So I won't. But I will say that in automatic mode, the 570S poses questions no one's asked. There were several moments where even maximum throttle would not coax the car into a lower gear. I had flashbacks to my high school years in an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera trying to pass friends uphill. Whereas Porsche's PDK nearly always Does The Right Thing™, the 570S transmission should not be operated in automatic unless you want to berate yourself for spending so much on a car.
That said, driving a 570S towards Big Sur gave me the same feeling as an afternoon at Spa Francorchamps in an Exige Cup R last year. Without exaggeration, it was one of the top driving experiences of my life. Turn-in is excellent; steering is transparent and utterly intuitive. Second gear at 8,200 RPM brings you north of 90 mph, with an additional 5 gears to go. I could drive this car all day -- and did. There were moments when I would have written you a check, right then and there, to make the car my own.
McLaren tried to price-differentiate this car by removing the fancier suspension bits available in the 650S, 675LT, and the P1. But try as they might to cheapen things, this car continues to set the standard for road composure. Even in sport mode, the ride is compliant and taut without feeling overly firm.
On an undulating road, the rear tires broke traction at beyond-highway speeds... but this is arguably unavoidable. The legendary McLaren suspension feel was not lost even by their attempts to create a down-market vehicle. Up to now, I had consistently rated the Porsche 981/991 PASM as one of the industry's best-riding sport suspensions. McLaren is clearly better, even in this "budget" configuration.
You might think after all my reviews that I'd launch yet again into a curmudgeony if-I-paid-my-own-money-for-this-crap-I'd-be-incensed rant.
And you'd be right.
This 5,000 mile specimen has already had its plastic interior door handle broken twice and its plastic parking brake handle snapped off once. The dashboard cover pops spontaneously off in the heat. Although the 570S is the first McLaren with a glovebox, such claims are unverifiable because no observable handles or switches for said storage exist. Attempting to open the glovebox was a master course in epistemology.
Every time you start the car, it pings you about missing washer fluid (not true), ride height errors (not true), and even a reminder that the car is 22,049 days overdue for service. To save you time: that's right around when Marty McFly arrived in a DeLorean and invented rock and roll. And lest you think I'm exaggerating, I've attached photographic evidence. By the end of my rental, the reminder had bumped to 22,051 days -- so it's not hard-coded, and it's not an underflow. The car really is way overdue.
Alcantara. I'll spare you further rants about this invented pill-prone fabric marketed by a consortium of synthetic materials manufacturers. It's everywhere in this car.
Oh, there's seat position memory, alright. You just have to hold the button down for 20 seconds as the seat moves towards its memorized setting. If you give up anytime before it reaches its final destination, it too gives up on you, as if reenacting Jerry Maguire's plea to "Help me help you." Never mind that every time you start the car, it banks the driver mirror hard-up, all the way up, presumably so you can check whether SFO flight arcs are operating normally.
For $188,600, you'd expect auto-dimming mirrors. You and your American high-expectations. No, no, the McLaren is all about squinting as needed at night. Don't be a coddled wimp.
Fancy speaker brands, and even fancy tweeter enclosures, don't overcome the fact that the floppy door panels audibly buzz and rhythmically squeak with the volume at halfway (5.5, so to speak). Purists out there will no doubt tell me that the sweet, sweet sound of the engine is all you need, and also throw in something about manual shift gates, etc etc. But I refuse to accept that an eye-wateringly expensive car with luxury-brand speakers should feature such comically bad installations. A first-time Civic DIY-installation by a nonchalant teenager might sport similar amateur-hour dynamics. NPR was fine. Music of any sort was an unmitigated disaster.
Yes, I did just admit to listening to NPR in a supercar. Briefly. Windows up.
The sill is thinner and 3" lower than the 12C's, so getting in and out via its dihedral doors is easier than ever. The frunk fits one carry-on and one laptop bag. The engine deck lid is inoperable by the owner; only the dealership can see the engine bay. There's a front lift to avoid nose scrapes. The doors aren't a problem in most parking spaces.
Visibility out the front, sides, and rear are all surprisingly good. There's a large ledge behind the seats, at about shoulder level, which I wouldn't recommend putting anything on unless it's meant to drift around and fill the cabin during spirited cornering or braking.
Some guys outside a bar asked me, as I parked, whether the car enabled me to -- with vastly different and crudely anatomical words -- engage romantically with many women in ephemeral, and perhaps even at times contemporaneous, relationships due to its ownership. And here's thing: what 18-year-old men don't realize is that they're pretty much the only people who think that of these. The truth is the 570S looks exotic but understated -- more than an R8 and less than a Lamborghini. It goes about town somewhat inconspicuously, especially in dark gray. And, depending on your proclivities, that might be a good thing.
This is a great car. It's faster than the McLaren F1. Lighter than all its competitors. Sublime to drive. If you're in the market for an R8, 911 Turbo S, or a Huracan, you need to consider the 570S if you're at all intellectually honest.
Yes, it has an infuriatingly cheap but very sophisticated-looking interior. Yes, it's made by a company that's barely been around 6 years. Yes, it can only be serviced by the dealer, who will no doubt gouge your one-percenter self repeatedly and unceremoniously without lubrication. Yes, its electronics are proof simultaneously of the need for software verification and the inadequacy thereof. Yes, the engine sound is muted; yes, the automatic transmission is comedy gold; yes, the stereo epitomizes financial folly; yes, reviewers who love slow-motion drifts keep criticizing its brand as "unemotional" relative to Ferrari; yes this, yes that, yes, yes, yes. You'd be right a hundred times.
But ask yourself this: in a moment of driving flow, where you're feeling instead of thinking, where specifics about the car disappear from consciousness... in that moment, the sun shining, the road ahead, nothing past, nothing future, all present, all forward, all pulse -- in that moment, will it matter?
It won't. It didn't. It doesn't. At least for me.
When the 570S drops like a rock, as all McLarens have in the modern era merely two or three years post-debut, it will be on my short list of cars to own. Not because it's practical, though it could easily be a daily driver. Not because it's cheap, because it isn't, though it's clearly the best value in a generously wide price range. But because driving this car is the type of rare visceral indulgence which delineates auto owners from auto enthusiasts.
Gainful employment may well have been invented to make driving the 570S aspirationally possible.
You're free to label me hyperbolic. I'll be the one in the corner, eyes closed, a light smile, gently rubbing the still-sore front muscles of his well-exercised neck, reliving why so many songs are sung of California.
Drive Impressions: 2016 McLaren 570S
Part of you wonders what'd happen if Sergey Brin and Elizabeth Hurley birthed a sports car. Your understandable curiosity has an answer, and it comes from England.
The McLaren 570S is plenty fast by supercar standards... but nowhere near the fastest. It's durably pretty, not outrageously gorgeous. It's the car Tony Stark would drive if those movies were recommissioned today.
It's also the first time in a long time that I've seriously contemplated buying a sports car after driving it. And I've driven a fair amount of fast cars.
ENGINE
McLaren puts the same 3.8L twin-turbo V8 in everything, from the "entry level" 540C, considered too slow to be sold in the US (!), all the way through to the granddaddy P1.
Never mind that a few thousand dollars buys you a chipped upgrade to 650S-level performance. Even a detuned 562 HP is nothing to scoff at, as it's more than sufficient to make your next destination forcibly jail or a hospital.
0-60 in 2.9 seconds is not the point. The point is 70-130, which I swear to you arrives with such mind-bending alacrity that I refuse to spend any more time incompetently attempting to conjure appropriate words. Did you know the muscles in the front of your neck could get sore? I didn't.
As with all McLarens, the engine has a muted, competent urgency which, though consistent with the car's holistic personality, is staidly unexceptional. It did best with the windows down through a long tunnel on my way to Pacifica... but a great engine wouldn't require so many qualifiers. If engine sounds are your thing, you'll want at least the Spyder.
DRIVE
The 570S's 3,186 lb. curb weight is:
- 210 lbs. lighter than a Huracan,
- 350 lbs. lighter than a 991 Turbo S, and
- 770 lbs. lighter than an Audi R8.
The zero on my keyboard is not misfiring. Unless you're wholly unfamiliar with driving dynamics and have instead wandered deep into this review trying to pass time before a delayed flight, little more needs be said.
This car drives amazingly, exceptionally well. It outclasses all road cars in its price range for driving dynamics. It is undoubtedly the most performance value you can get if you're in the R8 / Turbo S / NSX market.
Beyond the steering, let me give just one example: the pedals. Their spacing and positioning are perfect, and the feel of the pedals is absolutely sublime. The brakes require substantial progressive pressure, which makes modulation of threshold braking remarkably easy. If you've driven a wide variety of cars, especially on and off track, you'll know how rare it is to find a car where the pedals each feel perfect. This car's pedals are better than any I've experienced.
These days it's largely pointless to comment on the speed of paddle-shifted dual-clutch transmissions. So I won't. But I will say that in automatic mode, the 570S poses questions no one's asked. There were several moments where even maximum throttle would not coax the car into a lower gear. I had flashbacks to my high school years in an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera trying to pass friends uphill. Whereas Porsche's PDK nearly always Does The Right Thing™, the 570S transmission should not be operated in automatic unless you want to berate yourself for spending so much on a car.
That said, driving a 570S towards Big Sur gave me the same feeling as an afternoon at Spa Francorchamps in an Exige Cup R last year. Without exaggeration, it was one of the top driving experiences of my life. Turn-in is excellent; steering is transparent and utterly intuitive. Second gear at 8,200 RPM brings you north of 90 mph, with an additional 5 gears to go. I could drive this car all day -- and did. There were moments when I would have written you a check, right then and there, to make the car my own.
RIDE
McLaren tried to price-differentiate this car by removing the fancier suspension bits available in the 650S, 675LT, and the P1. But try as they might to cheapen things, this car continues to set the standard for road composure. Even in sport mode, the ride is compliant and taut without feeling overly firm.
On an undulating road, the rear tires broke traction at beyond-highway speeds... but this is arguably unavoidable. The legendary McLaren suspension feel was not lost even by their attempts to create a down-market vehicle. Up to now, I had consistently rated the Porsche 981/991 PASM as one of the industry's best-riding sport suspensions. McLaren is clearly better, even in this "budget" configuration.
FINISH AND INTERIOR
You might think after all my reviews that I'd launch yet again into a curmudgeony if-I-paid-my-own-money-for-this-crap-I'd-be-incensed rant.
And you'd be right.
This 5,000 mile specimen has already had its plastic interior door handle broken twice and its plastic parking brake handle snapped off once. The dashboard cover pops spontaneously off in the heat. Although the 570S is the first McLaren with a glovebox, such claims are unverifiable because no observable handles or switches for said storage exist. Attempting to open the glovebox was a master course in epistemology.
Every time you start the car, it pings you about missing washer fluid (not true), ride height errors (not true), and even a reminder that the car is 22,049 days overdue for service. To save you time: that's right around when Marty McFly arrived in a DeLorean and invented rock and roll. And lest you think I'm exaggerating, I've attached photographic evidence. By the end of my rental, the reminder had bumped to 22,051 days -- so it's not hard-coded, and it's not an underflow. The car really is way overdue.
Alcantara. I'll spare you further rants about this invented pill-prone fabric marketed by a consortium of synthetic materials manufacturers. It's everywhere in this car.
Oh, there's seat position memory, alright. You just have to hold the button down for 20 seconds as the seat moves towards its memorized setting. If you give up anytime before it reaches its final destination, it too gives up on you, as if reenacting Jerry Maguire's plea to "Help me help you." Never mind that every time you start the car, it banks the driver mirror hard-up, all the way up, presumably so you can check whether SFO flight arcs are operating normally.
For $188,600, you'd expect auto-dimming mirrors. You and your American high-expectations. No, no, the McLaren is all about squinting as needed at night. Don't be a coddled wimp.
Fancy speaker brands, and even fancy tweeter enclosures, don't overcome the fact that the floppy door panels audibly buzz and rhythmically squeak with the volume at halfway (5.5, so to speak). Purists out there will no doubt tell me that the sweet, sweet sound of the engine is all you need, and also throw in something about manual shift gates, etc etc. But I refuse to accept that an eye-wateringly expensive car with luxury-brand speakers should feature such comically bad installations. A first-time Civic DIY-installation by a nonchalant teenager might sport similar amateur-hour dynamics. NPR was fine. Music of any sort was an unmitigated disaster.
Yes, I did just admit to listening to NPR in a supercar. Briefly. Windows up.
PRACTICALITY
The sill is thinner and 3" lower than the 12C's, so getting in and out via its dihedral doors is easier than ever. The frunk fits one carry-on and one laptop bag. The engine deck lid is inoperable by the owner; only the dealership can see the engine bay. There's a front lift to avoid nose scrapes. The doors aren't a problem in most parking spaces.
Visibility out the front, sides, and rear are all surprisingly good. There's a large ledge behind the seats, at about shoulder level, which I wouldn't recommend putting anything on unless it's meant to drift around and fill the cabin during spirited cornering or braking.
Some guys outside a bar asked me, as I parked, whether the car enabled me to -- with vastly different and crudely anatomical words -- engage romantically with many women in ephemeral, and perhaps even at times contemporaneous, relationships due to its ownership. And here's thing: what 18-year-old men don't realize is that they're pretty much the only people who think that of these. The truth is the 570S looks exotic but understated -- more than an R8 and less than a Lamborghini. It goes about town somewhat inconspicuously, especially in dark gray. And, depending on your proclivities, that might be a good thing.
OVERALL
This is a great car. It's faster than the McLaren F1. Lighter than all its competitors. Sublime to drive. If you're in the market for an R8, 911 Turbo S, or a Huracan, you need to consider the 570S if you're at all intellectually honest.
Yes, it has an infuriatingly cheap but very sophisticated-looking interior. Yes, it's made by a company that's barely been around 6 years. Yes, it can only be serviced by the dealer, who will no doubt gouge your one-percenter self repeatedly and unceremoniously without lubrication. Yes, its electronics are proof simultaneously of the need for software verification and the inadequacy thereof. Yes, the engine sound is muted; yes, the automatic transmission is comedy gold; yes, the stereo epitomizes financial folly; yes, reviewers who love slow-motion drifts keep criticizing its brand as "unemotional" relative to Ferrari; yes this, yes that, yes, yes, yes. You'd be right a hundred times.
But ask yourself this: in a moment of driving flow, where you're feeling instead of thinking, where specifics about the car disappear from consciousness... in that moment, the sun shining, the road ahead, nothing past, nothing future, all present, all forward, all pulse -- in that moment, will it matter?
It won't. It didn't. It doesn't. At least for me.
When the 570S drops like a rock, as all McLarens have in the modern era merely two or three years post-debut, it will be on my short list of cars to own. Not because it's practical, though it could easily be a daily driver. Not because it's cheap, because it isn't, though it's clearly the best value in a generously wide price range. But because driving this car is the type of rare visceral indulgence which delineates auto owners from auto enthusiasts.
Gainful employment may well have been invented to make driving the 570S aspirationally possible.
You're free to label me hyperbolic. I'll be the one in the corner, eyes closed, a light smile, gently rubbing the still-sore front muscles of his well-exercised neck, reliving why so many songs are sung of California.
After just spending a few days with the current R8 V10 Plus, I came to almost the exact opposite conclusion compared to the 570S. Never gelled with the McLaren when we had one to test last summer. The ride was horrible compared to the 650S and its interconnected suspension, and the interior was way too orange and not quite polished enough.
The electrical and electronic gremlins started to really annoy me after a couple of days; once it stuck in neutral when trying to pull out of a queue of traffic dropping people off at Union Station, one of the mirrors wouldn't unfold itself when you turned the car on, and the parking sensors would randomly start beeping when I was stationary (and completely alone) at stop signs and junctions.
The R8 felt just as fast on the street, but much more polished (and obviously sounds a million times better).
I think I might be on McLaren's shortlist after our review because I said the car looked like an angry pokemon from the front.
The electrical and electronic gremlins started to really annoy me after a couple of days; once it stuck in neutral when trying to pull out of a queue of traffic dropping people off at Union Station, one of the mirrors wouldn't unfold itself when you turned the car on, and the parking sensors would randomly start beeping when I was stationary (and completely alone) at stop signs and junctions.
The R8 felt just as fast on the street, but much more polished (and obviously sounds a million times better).
I think I might be on McLaren's shortlist after our review because I said the car looked like an angry pokemon from the front.
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