First driving impressions of the McLaren 600LT Spider

Welcome to a very brief review of the 600LT Spider. And hang on a minute, you're thinking, what is this swindle? He's sitting on a sofa and not inside the car out in Arizona. Well, bear with me two seconds, let me explain. On the actual launch itself, if I had filmed out there, would have meant me trying to review the car after literally about ten minutes sitting on a tracks, although I didn't know I subsequently got to drive it more, but, there wouldn't be time to film it afterwards anyway, the long and short of it is, I didn't want to film like that, because that's not fair on you guys. I'm not about to review a car after those sort of brief exposure to it. But, Drew, was adamant that come the embargo date, you would want to know, he thought, to be honest, what else are you going to talk about at your [INAUDIBLE], if you do not have Henry Catchpoles opinion on the 600 LT Spider, so for what it's worth, here it is. And, yes, we will at some point get it back in, do a proper film on it with a wonderful flaming [INAUDIBLE] of exhaust but if you want to know dynamically what it's like, this is it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] So just a quickly recap what this 600LT spider is. It is well [UNKNOWN] 600LT [UNKNOWN] So you've got 600PS which is 590 [UNKNOWN] You got [UNKNOWN] because you got the refilling resistance next to 50 kilos but its a hundred kilos [UNKNOWN] equivalent 570S Spider. You've got springs that are 34% differ at front, 13% differ at the rear. And your roll bar's the other way around. So they're 15% differ at the front and 25% differ at the rear. And, yeah, that's kind of about it. It's more lightweight. It's more hardcore. It's the long-tail version And to drive. Well it is very much like the coupe which is to say absolutely brilliant. We had a road [UNKNOWN] in America and Arizona but to be honest was an awful lot of long straight roads with the sudden occasion cattle [UNKNOWN] I think the corners possibly Six and two and half hours. So most of my opinion was formed on the track which was somehow called Arizona Motorsports Park. I would say I drove the 600LT [UNKNOWN] around the Hungaroring which was more conventional track. But this little track next to Luke Airforce Base Was brilliant. It was really, really good. It was very technical so I spent the first session really sort of learning the track and we had to keep ESP on the first bit because we had an instructor next to us. But the second session, pushed much harder, learned the track, no ESP, it was dynamic and the car was brilliant. And it really showed off the dynamics of the car in terms of Just how well it gets into the corner. So the sport series cars always feel quite loose in the rear, particularly in the non LT cars. LT much more stable but nonetheless, you can still use that rear to get into corners bit like driving a sort of a big car to that extent. And it was just huge amounts of fun. It feel so progressive in the way that it breaks away. In fact you can get the rare swing and use that all the way through a corner so brings us to the last section of the track was really quick Right hand that would break fourth gear. Breaking really really hard. So if you increase the brake booster so [UNKNOWN] hard ware and put it in [UNKNOWN] and it stops in five meters more than P1 from a 124 mph. They are fantastic brakes And then as soon as you turn into this left turn you feel the rear come around but you can then get it to swing back the other way. The throttle is just enough power to overwhelm and [UNKNOWN] and again Doesn't feel scary just feel so smooth and progressive and some of that comes down to the trophy our tires. We should develop with the car and it feels almost like being on a light being on a slick tire when it's nice and warm that lovely smooth feeling you get where it's not snappy at all. And it was brilliant just really really good to detract that's with the with the roof down As well, and of course you have the extra sort of cracks from those wonderful top exit exhausts, and I loved it. It was just absolutely fabulous around the track, so I'm really looking forward to driving on the road. So there we are, that is a very brief review of the 600LT. As I say, we will be getting One in and, yeah I can't wait cuz it was really, really, really good. [LAUGH]