The McLaren 675LT Spider ditches the roof, replaces it with a few pounds and a higher MSRP
To satiate customer demand, McLaren's released a drop-top version of its 675LT, a car that pays homage to the 1997 McLaren F1 GT Longtail.
In the world of supercars, it helps to build a convertible. Nearly every high-powered, high-value vehicle offers a drop-top variant alongside a more traditional coupe model. If you happen to live in a part of the world that has great weather year-round, getting the sun in your face and the wind in your hair is almost necessary.
McLaren's no stranger to this tradition -- it's built convertible models for nearly all of its lineup, save for the range-topping P1 hypercar. Today, that stable grows once more with the introduction of the McLaren 675LT Spider, a drop-top version of Woking's latest creation.
The 675LT Spider sports two small aesthetic tweaks over the coupe -- new 20-spoke alloy wheels and a unique paint job.
The 675LT Spider replaces its fixed roof with a retractable hardtop. The whole assembly adds but 88 pounds to the equation, putting the Spider's curb weight at a nice, even 2,800 pounds -- 220 pounds lighter than the 650S Spider on which this car is based. McLaren is also throwing in a unique paint job and 20-spoke lightweight alloy wheels that aren't available on the coupe.
Other than the roof and those little aesthetic touches, the Spider is more or less the same car as its fixed-roof brethren. It's still packing 666 horsepower from a 3.8-liter, twin-turbocharged eight-cylinder engine. Power makes its way to the rear wheels by way of a seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission. Given the extra heft, the Spider's 0-60 time should likely end up around 3.0 seconds, a tenth or two off the coupe.
The 675LT gets its name from the 1997 McLaren F1 GT Longtail, which was built for homologation purposes. Some racing series require production variants of otherwise-unique race cars.
Naturally, the extra tech built into the Spider results in a slightly higher price. The 675LT Spider will run buyers $372,600 or £285,450. This represents a $23,100 / £25,950 price bump over the coupe. The fixed-roof 675LT is limited to just 500 units worldwide, and it's safe to expect a similar production run for the convertible. McLaren did not have information on Australian availability or pricing on hand at the time of this writing, but its domestic price converts to just over AU$507,300 at current rates.