McLaren Speedtail Hits 250mph With Ease During Cape Canaveral Test Sessions

[Famine]

I totally understand your point, and i agree with you but... did you see the point of doing a GTR version of SENNA.

Yes - more power, more downforce, more track pace to make a more track/race-focussed car. Just like the McLaren F1 GTR. And the McLaren P1 GTR.

That's why a Speedtail GTR doesn't make any sense. Sure, more power is doable (it's always doable), but downforce and track pace are the antithesis of the Speedtail's purpose - it's not a track car. Except maybe a drag strip. Plus with a big fat wing on the back it would look like the Nissan R390.

 

[Dsavage27]

Not to mention I think this car is more so aimed at competing with the likes of the Bugatti Chiron, Koenigsegg regera...

 

[McLaren]

I totally understand your point, and i agree with you but... did you see the point of doing a GTR version of SENNA. My point is this is all business, and a Speedtail GTR even more expensive looks like a good business :-)

Give it a year and wait. McLaren is building cars as long as checkbooks are open; if there’s another version of the Speedtail they can build and rake in orders before its ever shown, they’ll do it.

Probably won’t be a GTR model, but could be anything else.

 

[Hallitrd]

Good looking car, and instantly reminded me of the Isdera Commendatore 112i. I first saw the Isdera in the Need For Speed 2, 20 years ago, and thought it was absolutely stunning.

 

[lancia delta hf]

No point.

The Speedtail is designed to not disturb the air as it passes through. The whole thing is built around smooth airflow - it takes energy to make smooth air turbulent; that energy comes from the thing passing through it - so it can go fast, efficiently and in a straight line.

The Senna is designed to get hold of the air and batter it into submission, redirecting it in the most brutal fashion possible to create downforce. This is so the car gets squash into the floor so it can go fast around corners.

Taking a car that's designed from the outset to make the air wonder where it went and make it into a car that's supposed to mug the air and leave it in hospital is a pointless exercise.


Incidentally, the McLaren F1 could do 243mph and still had a bit to give, with 627hp. The Speedtail is pencilled in at 250mph with 1,035hp, but McLaren says it's the most aerodynamically efficient car it's ever made.

I'm having trouble working out why it's only marginally faster despite being way more powerful and more aerodynamic, but I can only come up with the idea that the Speedtail has a larger frontal area (the F1 is actually quite small) and/or that the motors don't operate in Velocity Mode as they'll be out of juice on the acceleration or may overheat and derate due to the change in airflow to the high-temperature radiators at speed.

It's kinda funny that they've designed this car which looks a bit awkward to slip thtough air ay high speeds to be as a grand tourer, that will only be doing 70MPH. I'd understand the questionable design if it was an ugly track car, like the Senna. This seems unnecessarily gangly.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

These photos with the different lighting looks much better than the rendered press releases

 

[Carbon_6]

These photos with the different lighting looks much better than the rendered press releases

That's usually always the case.

The initial photos of the Senna did not do the car any justice. Yes, in person, it's still no looker, but the details are truly commendable.

 

[OJT6627]

I remember i wasn't much fond of 720S when the first photos were released, but then i saw it in different colors and i actually liked it a lot. Orange looks especially good on it

I wonder how Speedtail will look in British Racing Green

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

On the plus side, if you don't mind a bit of tinkering and maintenance, there's a whole bunch of really great sports cars from the 90's and 00's that are getting pretty cheap for what they are. Some are overpriced, like many of the Japanese tuner cars. But there's still plenty of great sports cars to buy if you're interested.

As an example, look at the prices of 996s if you want incredible value for money out of your sports car (add a couple grand to have the IMS changed out). They're unlikely ever to be a collector's 911, but that's exactly the point. They still drive great if that's what you're after, but you don't have to pay a premium for them.

And while something like the Speedtail is cool looking, if an average Joe goes to a track day I suspect they'd probably have a lot more fun in a prepped Miata than the Speedtail. Unless your life's wish is to go 250mph, I don't think you need to spend silly cash in order to get a great driving experience.

This is the silver lining. I own a 986 my self, though I'm not yet convinced it was a good idea.

 

[homeforsummer]

To some extent I guess that's true of all ludicrously expensive cars, but at least stuff like the P1, LaFerrari and 918 made the pretense of being really amazing drivers cars.

I think your mistake here is assuming the Speedtail won't also be great to drive. Every current McLaren is, so I'm not sure why the Speedtail would be an exception.

And are a P1, LaFerrari or 918's capabilities really any more exploitable on the road than a Speedtail's? Might they be less so, given the Speedtail has been deliberately designed as a grand tourer and has, in theory, the perfect driving position?

I think to look at the top speed alone also misses the point slightly. As with anything - a Land Rover's off-road capabilities, a 911 GT3 RS's track performance, an amphibious car's ability to traverse water - the appeal is in its potential as much as its outright ability. I drive cars almost every day whose limits are well beyond being safe to explore on the road, so why do they need limits that high?

The idea is that as the bar is raised, their capabilities are proportionally greater underneath those limits too:

Now the advert's obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But a 2CV will indeed be quicker than a Ferrari if one's doing 70mph and the other is doing 65. The difference is that a Mondial will also do double that, so at 70mph it has much more ability in hand than the 2CV does.

Similarly I've taken an old 1984 Golf GTI to V-max on the autobahn - about 120mph. It felt pretty dramatic, but 120mph in the Bentley Mulsanne I took up to just shy of 180mph felt like barely breaking a sweat. The Bentley doesn't need to go anywhere near 180mph - the opportunities to explore that speed are slim, even in Germany - but it makes it a hell of a lot better car to drive at 120mph.

The Speedtail is no different, just with larger numbers. It's a GT; its USP is to do comfortably what other "normal" hypercars do giving everything they've got with noise and drama.

Incidentally, the McLaren F1 could do 243mph and still had a bit to give, with 627hp. The Speedtail is pencilled in at 250mph with 1,035hp, but McLaren says it's the most aerodynamically efficient car it's ever made.

I'm having trouble working out why it's only marginally faster despite being way more powerful and more aerodynamic, but I can only come up with the idea that the Speedtail has a larger frontal area (the F1 is actually quite small) and/or that the motors don't operate in Velocity Mode as they'll be out of juice on the acceleration or may overheat and derate due to the change in airflow to the high-temperature radiators at speed.

Worth noting that the F1's 243mph run was slightly cheaty - McLaren turned up the rev limiter to 8300rpm (more than was safe for the engine, and more than Andy Wallace was willing to give another try after his run!) as at the original 7500rpm it stopped at 236mph. I don't think it really had any more to give...

As I wrote above, the ease at which the Speedtail does that speed is probably greater too - more stable, less on the limits of its capabilities (it'll get to 186mph nine seconds ahead of an F1). I suspect 250mph is low-balling it slightly, but McLaren's problem will be where to test it. When I last spoke to them they had a few ideas in mind, but some of the obvious places are out - Nardo isn't suitable, and Ehra-Lessien is owned by the VW Group.

 

[andrea]

It has grown on me a fair bit.

 

[Aphelion]

I'm absolutely besotted with this thing .

 

[Slurm]

Would be a brilliant creation, if they were announcing plans for international hyper-roads.

It’s kinda just a shame to see car designers visualising and even building these amazing machines when our infrastructure is stuck at a completely different level.

 

[bjl23]

In this picture it looks like the car is poking it's tounge out

 

[eran0004]

Would be a brilliant creation, if they were announcing plans for international hyper-roads.

It’s kinda just a shame to see car designers visualising and even building these amazing machines when our infrastructure is stuck at a completely different level.

I guess there are better things to spend the money on than building hyper-roads for the 0.001% who would have any use for them.

Not to mention that it's faster, cheaper and safer to fly

 

[G.T.Ace]

So, I was bored:

 

[Snikle]

So, I was bored:
View attachment 776748 View attachment 776749 View attachment 776750 View attachment 776751 View attachment 776752

The black and Orange look especially nice. Could you do British Racing Green?

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I actually don't like it in any of the "normal" colours. The showcase one is it, for me.

This is a fascinating car, and I find it far more interesting (and desirable) than the Senna. Neither is pretty, but at least this has some elegance to it — the Senna is all aggression, even sitting still. It has an utterly fantastic seating position (I recognize that's as much as I'm ever going to get from it, sadly), but even that seems meh when you consider the iconic three-seater layout here.

Whereas the Senna feels like the combination of all our current knowledge about how to make a car fast, the Speedtail is a look into the future. The morphing body from that BMW concept years ago (GINA, was it?) is now a thing, although it's been done with CF, not just fabric. In an age of increasing automation, there's also something decidedly romantic about the idea of a GT car, capable of crushing huge distances with ease and enjoyment. The 720S already masters the double-act of impressive ride and freakish handling, so I don't doubt this will at least match that. And that interior...

It's just a shame there's so few, that it's so expensive, and that it's likely most will never be used for the stated goal. I know it'll never happen, but I'd love to see McLaren take this approach and apply it to a car slightly below the 540C's price point. I get the 570GT is the "tourer" of the range, but the differences between it and the S are not big enough, IMO.

 

[G.T.Ace]

The black and Orange look especially nice. Could you do British Racing Green?

A quick rush job:


I like it best in black although a pure white one could be sexy too.

 

[Tornado]

I like it. Far too many of the cars in this segment seemed like they looked at what Gumbert had done last decade and took it as a personal challenge to make something that looked even worse. This (and the 720s) seem like a refreshing course correction.

 

[trustjab]

I think your mistake here is assuming the Speedtail won't also be great to drive. Every current McLaren is, so I'm not sure why the Speedtail would be an exception.

And are a P1, LaFerrari or 918's capabilities really any more exploitable on the road than a Speedtail's? Might they be less so, given the Speedtail has been deliberately designed as a grand tourer and has, in theory, the perfect driving position?

I think to look at the top speed alone also misses the point slightly. As with anything - a Land Rover's off-road capabilities, a 911 GT3 RS's track performance, an amphibious car's ability to traverse water - the appeal is in its potential as much as its outright ability. I drive cars almost every day whose limits are well beyond being safe to explore on the road, so why do they need limits that high?

The idea is that as the bar is raised, their capabilities are proportionally greater underneath those limits too:

View attachment 776728​

Now the advert's obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But a 2CV will indeed be quicker than a Ferrari if one's doing 70mph and the other is doing 65. The difference is that a Mondial will also do double that, so at 70mph it has much more ability in hand than the 2CV does.

Similarly I've taken an old 1984 Golf GTI to V-max on the autobahn - about 120mph. It felt pretty dramatic, but 120mph in the Bentley Mulsanne I took up to just shy of 180mph felt like barely breaking a sweat. The Bentley doesn't need to go anywhere near 180mph - the opportunities to explore that speed are slim, even in Germany - but it makes it a hell of a lot better car to drive at 120mph.

The Speedtail is no different, just with larger numbers. It's a GT; its USP is to do comfortably what other "normal" hypercars do giving everything they've got with noise and drama.

Worth noting that the F1's 243mph run was slightly cheaty - McLaren turned up the rev limiter to 8300rpm (more than was safe for the engine, and more than Andy Wallace was willing to give another try after his run!) as at the original 7500rpm it stopped at 236mph. I don't think it really had any more to give...

As I wrote above, the ease at which the Speedtail does that speed is probably greater too - more stable, less on the limits of its capabilities (it'll get to 186mph nine seconds ahead of an F1). I suspect 250mph is low-balling it slightly, but McLaren's problem will be where to test it. When I last spoke to them they had a few ideas in mind, but some of the obvious places are out - Nardo isn't suitable, and Ehra-Lessien is owned by the VW Group.

Cool post. I still find it hard to fathom that in over 20 years, they (McLaren) have found less than 20mph on a top speed of their (imo) best ever car.

The thing screams at me cheap. Not as in inexpensive, but as in not original and not 'new' enough. It looks like a 570 mixed with a little 720 and Tesla thrown in with smoothed edges. They sleek the car out and extend the tail and add these electric motors just to reach a top speed that's not very impressive for it's market. Sure it's sold out. Not hard to do with a little over 100 of them and the brand behind it. But to me McLaren isn't what it used to be and other smaller brands that are newer are stealing it's thunder.

 

[homeforsummer]

But to me McLaren isn't what it used to be and other smaller brands that are newer are stealing it's thunder.

The rest of your post is fine - I don't agree with it, but your opinion is valid.

The line above I'm not so sure about. What brands are stealing McLaren's thunder? And what did it used to be?

The answer to the latter is a company that built and sold a single vehicle line for a relatively brief period of time that was undoubtedly the vision of just one guy, Gordon Murray. The original F1 was great, but McLaren as a company back then doesn't hold a candle to how it is now - we're talking about a company that in the space of just seven years has gone from making a supercar nobody was that fussed about critically or emotionally (the MP4-12C) to building a whole range of some of the most exciting and technologically advanced cars on the planet.

I've been fortunate enough to drive a handful of current McLarens (570S, 570GT, 570S Spider, 720S) plus several of what you'd consider rivals (488, various Porsches including Turbos and GT3s). They're genuinely entertaining and engaging to drive and look spectacular in the metal - people seem to have in their head that McLaren is still a big extension of Ron Dennis' brain unemotionally churning out mid-engined cars, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

This (and the 720s) seem like a refreshing course correction.

It's a testament to the long-term planning of McLaren that the 720S is now one of the most visually arresting cars in its segment. The shock of it at launch has faded IMO, and taken in as a whole, it's a great return to high performance cars also being fantastic looking cars. The Huracan continues the same basic design language that Lambo's had going for two decades, and the 488 already feels ancient (plus it has the absolute worst door handle placement of any modern supercar).

people seem to have in their head that McLaren is still a big extension of Ron Dennis' brain unemotionally churning out mid-engined cars, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

These folks sound like they might know the people who consider driving a GT-R akin to piloting a giant PlayStation.

 

[Famine]

Worth noting that the F1's 243mph run was slightly cheaty - McLaren turned up the rev limiter to 8300rpm (more than was safe for the engine, and more than Andy Wallace was willing to give another try after his run!) as at the original 7500rpm it stopped at 236mph. I don't think it really had any more to give...

Yes... and no.

Officially, the McLaren's record is 240mph and change. That's pretty much just because two-way average (which is where Hennessey slipped up). The one-way speed was 243mph, and it's what McLaren quotes all the time.

We know that the F1 had a geared top speed of 236mph at 7,500rpm, because Wallace hit it. That's 31.47mph/1000rpm. Move the limiter to 8,300rpm and the geared top speed becomes 261.2mph, give or take. The record 243mph comes in at just over 7,700rpm - the reason for lifting the limiter wasn't to give the car enough gearing to hit the top speed (the power drop off over 900rpm from peak power would be way too much to do that), but to stop the car banging off the rev limiter/needing a gear change in the banked corner on the run up.

As we know, at that point it becomes a question of power, and it gets a bit wrinkly there for me. The F1's regular peak power - 627hp - comes in at 7,400rpm, which is below the standard limiter and further below the engine speed for 243mph. That suggests that the car can do 243mph without using full power (because it's not available at that engine speed), but I have no idea what the power curve for the car actually looks like. Nonetheless, we're probably looking at somewhere between 600 and 610hp at that sort of engine speed.

(The fagpacket maths* says that the F1 has a total resistance of just 877lb at 243mph, which converts to 568.6whp, or about 640hp at the crank. Which is a bit over the mark, but alarmingly close for fagpacket maths The fagpacket does make some assumptions about level ground, air density and powertrain losses though, so I think we can allow it 2%; there is an explanation that requires the XP5 prototype to be wearing the 1995 LM-spec engine when it did the run in 1998, but there's no particular evidence for that, and McLaren does state it's an original engine/box, so we can just call it an error within standard deviation)

That would mean that if the car could hit peak power at peak road speed (it's often mooted that the F1 could pull a seventh gear), in otherwise standard guise, it could do somewhere between 245.2mph and 246.6mph, depending on what power it was curling out at 7,700rpm at Ehra-Lessien. Ultimately it can't because I'm pretty sure it was never really the stated aim to make it the fastest production car in the world - it just happened to be that as an emergent property of everything else Murray wanted from the car.

If McLaren was to have gone and pulled shenanigans with the LM-spec engine, at 680hp at 7,800rpm, assuming a similar power drop off, it could just about hit 250mph... With 1,036hp, a McLaren F1 could smash into that 8,300rpm limiter (which it wouldn't have with a turbo-V8 and hybrid, but I'm just giving it the power rather than the powertrain ) at 261.2mph - and in a very, very clunky conversion I've got it pencilled in for 287mph with the appropriate gearing**.

Which takes me back to:

Incidentally, the McLaren F1 could do 243mph and still had a bit to give, with 627hp. The Speedtail is pencilled in at 250mph with 1,035hp, but McLaren says it's the most aerodynamically efficient car it's ever made.

I'm having trouble working out why it's only marginally faster despite being way more powerful and more aerodynamic, but I can only come up with the idea that the Speedtail has a larger frontal area (the F1 is actually quite small) and/or that the motors don't operate in Velocity Mode as they'll be out of juice on the acceleration or may overheat and derate due to the change in airflow to the high-temperature radiators at speed.

If the Speedtail is quite a bit wider and taller than the F1 then its CdA would be higher - say 21sqft at 0.28Cd compared to 17.4 at 0.32 - and that'd increase the air resistance at 250mph to the point it'd need 740hp crank to achieve it. If we then assume that McLaren's hybrid system turns the battery off north of... say... 300km/h, either because they're spent on the acceleration run or the change in airflow may cause heating/derating issues, and uses only the petrol engine, and we assume it's a less angry version of the V8 from the Senna with 789hp, we're probably getting close enough.

Or McLaren may simply have said "250mph's enough, right?" and geared it to that. But I like the technical solution above




*RR = 2,509lb * 0.0135 = 33.87lb
AR = 243mph * 243mph * 0.32Cd * 17.44sqft * 0.00256 = 843.62lb
TR = 843.62 + 33.87 = 877.49lb
Power = (877.49 * 243)/375 = 568.6whp = 639.7hp
** Edit: I've also just realised that ages and ages ago I did a similar calculation for the Chiron and came up with 288mph out of its 1,479hp... It's amazing how more efficient the F1 is!

 

[homeforsummer]

Or McLaren may simply have said "250mph's enough, right?" and geared it to that. But I like the technical solution above

This is kinda what I was getting at with my last paragraph. I suspect 250 is something the car will do relatively comfortably (I'd be surprised if it's geared to hit that on the rev limiter in top), and that the real speed entirely depends on them finding somewhere long and straight enough to hit it. "250" is just a nice-sounding number for marketing purposes that they know without any doubt they can hit, but more may be in the can.

Or... it is geared for 250mph (and ceases using battery assistance at higher speeds), and that's at least part of the reason it'll get to 186mph nine seconds quicker than the F1 (and probably to 230-odd with an even larger margin).

and the 488 already feels ancient

One of the things that grabs me about McLarens compared to the 488 is that they feel far more special when you're sitting inside. For all its weird dashboard shapes and busy steering wheel the Ferrari doesn't really scream exotic, but the driving position, dashboard design and control weights of everything from the 540 to the 720 immediately put you in the right mood.

The styling of the 720S has grown on me massively though. Wasn't keen at all when the first pictures emerged, but few current road cars look better in the flesh.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Or McLaren may simply have said "250mph's enough, right?" and geared it to that. But I like the technical solution above

Or (I think I saw somebody else mention it) the 'standard' Speedtail has been limited to 250mph so that they can build 5 examples of the Mclaren BP23 Speedtail-Longtail that does 270mph and then 2 examples (one for Alonso, probably) of the Mclaren BP23 ST-LT GT-R that does 272mph.

/cynic

 

[Famine]

I suspect 250 is something the car will do relatively comfortably (I'd be surprised if it's geared to hit that on the rev limiter in top), and that the real speed entirely depends on them finding somewhere long and straight enough to hit it. "250" is just a nice-sounding number for marketing purposes that they know without any doubt they can hit, but more may be in the can.

Or (I think I saw somebody else mention it) the 'standard' Speedtail has been limited to 250mph so that they can build 5 examples of the Mclaren BP23 Speedtail-Longtail that does 270mph and then 2 examples (one for Alonso, probably) of the Mclaren BP23 ST-LT GT-R that does 272mph.

Or that

 

[Disco_Volante]

@Famine, I believe you nailed it with the "McLaren didn't bother beyond 250" bit. You said that with the F1, beign the fastest car in the world was just a happy accident. It'd make sense that since the Speedtail is the successor to the F1, then the speed is just a happy accident again, with McLaren focusing on acceleration and comfort.

 

[trustjab]

The rest of your post is fine - I don't agree with it, but your opinion is valid.

The line above I'm not so sure about. What brands are stealing McLaren's thunder? And what did it used to be?

The answer to the latter is a company that built and sold a single vehicle line for a relatively brief period of time that was undoubtedly the vision of just one guy, Gordon Murray. The original F1 was great, but McLaren as a company back then doesn't hold a candle to how it is now - we're talking about a company that in the space of just seven years has gone from making a supercar nobody was that fussed about critically or emotionally (the MP4-12C) to building a whole range of some of the most exciting and technologically advanced cars on the planet.

I've been fortunate enough to drive a handful of current McLarens (570S, 570GT, 570S Spider, 720S) plus several of what you'd consider rivals (488, various Porsches including Turbos and GT3s). They're genuinely entertaining and engaging to drive and look spectacular in the metal - people seem to have in their head that McLaren is still a big extension of Ron Dennis' brain unemotionally churning out mid-engined cars, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I'm not really speaking about the road car division in specifics when I say 'not what they used to be'. As a whole, that includes their racing programs. They are partially if not majority owned by investors that float their operations, at least the f1 team. They are profit driven which is fine but that's a change from the the past. Imo they aren't the same McLaren brand that people used think of just a decade or two ago. The cars they make are all nice but lack originality. Not just in appearance but also their heart (engine and chassis/tub). If it works for them great, but in my eyes I see more exciting products in other exotic car brands. And their most popular feature is a failing race team nearly on life support. I think that's the saddest thing for the company which is now a whole.

 

[homeforsummer]

Still not sure I agree with that. Hard to accuse them of lacking originality when they design and build their own engines in-house - not something many supercar builders do, Ferrari aside - and you can't really blame them for using a carbon tub as McLaren invented it...

Is it unoriginal that they use only derivatives of that engine/tub combo across the range? Perhaps, but they're also a completely independent manufacturer so economies of scale are important. "Profit-driven" is perhaps a little harsh - the company (the road car division at least) is very young and simply surviving is a real achievement.

The end products still feel quite different - there are some underlying similarities, but a 570S and 720S don't feel much alike really, and while I've not driven a Senna, I can't imagine that feels hugely similar to the other road cars either.

The F1 team is a different thing really. It can't really be judged in the same way as the road car division, because one is doing poorly and the other incredibly well.