SYDNEY: McLaren 650S Spider that the MSO is based on is silly fast and breathtakingly capable. It hits 100km/h in three seconds flat and on a racetrack, on to 200km/h in 8.6s and eventually top out at 328km/h.
A carbon-fibre tub that helps keep the kerb weight down to 1370kg joins forces with trick, interlinked hydraulic suspension, a wide footprint and perfectly weighted steering to make a car that simply feels beyond the public road.
Racing technology is at the core of this car. McLaren made its formidable name in Formula One and has produced championship winners for the likes of Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton. Then there was the McLaren F1, its first foray into the road car world and a machine still considered one of the finest of all time.
Ignoring the McLaren-Mercedes SLR, a ham-fisted partnership with its then F1 engine supplier, this is the first full-bore McLaren to hit the road since. Well, the MP4-12C was the first, but it soon morphed into the 650S, and that’s the car it should have been all along. Now the almighty P1 has joined the line-up, but this 650s is the volume seller that truly carries the hopes of the company on its broad haunches. For a first attempt at mass production, it’s a mightily mature car.
The stitching on the Alcantara dashboard covering is perfect, which is to be expected from notoriously detail-oriented McLaren boss Ron Dennis. Attention to the proprietary sat-nav and in-car entertainment, among the original car’s weak points, has paid off in spades. The separate climate control for the driver and passenger and a level of refinement that means I step out in Plymouth more than five hours after leaving the factory thanks to heavy traffic as fresh as the moment.
The McLaren goes toe-to-toe with the Ferrari 458 Italia, its logical on-track rival and by all measures a hell of a car. Car magazines have attempted to separate them and the 650S seems to edge the Prancing Horse, but it is by fractions, and those fractions are really only irrelevant arguments had in a bar, not on the road. The truth is that the choice to buy a McLaren or a Ferrari is an emotional one and has almost nothing to do with the technical parts of the car. It’s about what they represent.
MSO McLaren 650S Spider
Price: $600,000 approx
Power: 641bhp (478kW)
0-100km/h: 3.0 seconds
Top speed: 328km/h
