The McLaren Artura was the British racing manufacturer’s first foray into the hybrid era, but forget what you may or may not already know about that—the new Spider is the next-gen upgrade your inner-petrolhound is really craving. And, yes, it really is still a hybrid.
A twin-turbocharged V6. A lightning quick E-Motor. 700PS combined. 0-62mph in three seconds, up to 205mph. Blistering pace. No roof. Welcome to sensory overload, my friend.
The new McLaren Artura Spider is all about driver engagement. Heightened senses. Sheer, unfiltered top-down joy, with a heap of performance magic at work. For a start, the hybridized V6 now has 690hp (or 700PS), up by 20hp from the first Artura. It also gets a new exhaust system lovingly crafted to make the engine sing louder in the middle to high rev ranges. Vents in the cockpit feed all that beautiful sound right into the cabin, too.
It all partners with an eight-speed close-ratio gearbox which now “pre-fills” for faster gearchanges—25 percent faster, actually. Electric mode still provides 94bhp of the total power as before, but for 21 miles this time as opposed to the previous range of 19 miles. McLaren calls it stealth mode. Handy if you’re looking to leave suddenly in the middle of the night without waking the neighbors. For a midnight drive on empty roads, that is.
Then there’s the new Spider’s incredibly light weight, all 1457kg of it, the lightest in its class. Combined with new engine mounts that keep the powertrain steady in the chassis under load, the result is an even stabler, faster and more connected Artura than the last. It begins to feel as if the steering wheel is part of you, the car an extension of your body. No limit to its grip. No end to the fun. Outside, polycarbonate rear buttresses and an aerothermal concept manage air flow, pushing air in and around the Spider’s headgear. It keeps the engine cool when it’s angry and covered in roof.
The roof system itself has been engineered to within a millimeter of perfection, retracting in only 11 seconds up to 31mph in near silence. Even the rear window has been thoughtfully set to retract just two thirds of the way down, because the aero wizards found it to be the optimal position for reducing wind buffeting inside the cabin with the top down. An optional electrochromic glass panel in the roof blocks out 99 percent of the sun’s rays if you so wish, and it has to be said, when you’re done with open-top driving, shutting the world out feels very smug indeed.
All-in-all, it’s still the ravishingly quick McLaren supercar you’ve come to know and love, this time, with a near-silent roof that eliminates the electric whoosh. It feels and looks the part, with the option to drop into “stealth mode” when the situation requires. Enormously powerful, visceral, raw – yet refined, precise and exquisitely engineered; this is a hybrid like no other. And we like it. A lot.