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This is the McLaren 720S.
It's the fastest car McLaren has in regular production.
How fast?
Try 212 miles an hour.
It's also beautiful and exotic and all the things you want your nearly $300,000 710 horsepower supercar to be.
Now when reviewing a car as overwhelming as this, it's a little hard to know where to start.
So I decided to turn to the power of the hive mind
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I started by going on some various social media platforms and asking what you want to know about the 720S and my assistant who's gonna hand me a compilation from those questions.
Thank you, sir.
Question number one from Autonomous Law Safe Self-Drive on Twitter, Does it have cup holders?
Asking for a friend.
Yeah.
It's got two cup holders.
@ztron on Twitter, does it do email?
No.
Deon G @mcdonald's on Twitter, does it have cup holders?
Had to 3D print some for my pickup.
Yes, it has two cup holders.
Ashley Haufman @ chick tech on Twitter.
How cool or uncool does one look getting in and out of it?
Eg, do you have to duck and weave, or roll and squeeze, like a boss?
Let's find out.
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You tell me, Ashley.
Actually.
All right, next question from [UNKNOWN] Paul on Instagram.
How many cup holders?
Are you kidding me?
Is this really the right list of questions, because everyone just wants to know about cup holders.
There's gotta be better questions than this.
This guy's asking about a Big Gulp, why?
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And since everybody's gonna be a stereotypical American and ask the wrong questions about cup holders, let me ask the right questions that you should be asking.
Starting with, if the car makes 710 horsepower.
Why do they call the 720S?
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That's because McLaren uses what's called metric horse power or [FOREIGN] in German.
The numbers in PS are ever so slightly higher than good, old American HP.
So when you're up this is a 720 horse power Car.
Anyway, that power comes from a 4.0 litre twin turbo-charged V8 that's situated in the middle of this ridiculously sculpted body.
Now, while the competition from Ferrari and Aston Martin use turbochargers too, they generally try to focus on immediate throttle response and torque.
And this is different than most other supercars.
There's Actually a fair bit of turbo lag here, which is a delay between you getting on the accelerator and the car actually accelerating.
Let me show you, I'll drop a couple gears here, put my foot down, nothing.
And then all of a sudden, here comes the boost.
[LAUGH] Okay, there's so much power, so much power.
And also A distinctive engine noise, as well.
Most modern supercars, they kinda try to hide the fact that they have turbo chargers, but not here.
You can hear all that air being jammed into the engines intake and when you lift off the gas, you can even hear a little bit of Escape clutter, I love it.
Okay next question, aren't all supercars supposed to have big wings and where's the big wing on the 720s?
While the need for the big wing is debateable, the answer is yes, the 720s does indeed have one, and it is quite large.
It's just hiding.
Press this button on the dashboard and you engage active aeromode and when you do that, the wind pops up into the breeze to give you more down force.
Get on the brakes and it flips up serving as the kind of giant aerobrake that would make kick the car blush with envy.
And while that wing is certainly the most noticeable, it's just one part of enough hidden and discreet aerodynamic fixtures on, around, and under the 720 S to give a computational fluid dynamicist All sorts of funny feelings.
Next question.
What's up with the dashboard?
The 720S has an updated version of McLaren's IRIS info-tainment system, which is comprehensive enough and does everything you want it to.
Except for supporting Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
But even though it does just about everything, it can still be a little bit sluggish at times.
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The real eye catching point however, is how this gauge cluster tucks away when you go into track mode, it's exactly the kind of oddball conversation starter that super cars need, but it's also a little bit silly.
The idea is to reduce distraction when you're racing, but when I'm on track, that's exactly when I want details like tire pressures, which you can only see on the full display.
Thankfully you can easily disable the origami show in the car's setting.
Next question, isn't this car supposed to have some kind of crazy suspension system or something?
Yes, it does.
The 720 S has one of the most advanced adapter suspension systems on the road, which is able to dynamically adjust for both road and track.
It's amazingly compliant over bumpy roads and yet delivers the kind of procession and feedback you need from a car with outrageous speed like this.
Like the 650s before the car uses hydraulic links between corners to counteract roll keeping the lightweight stiff chassis level without relying on traditional antiroll bar That's all controlled by McLaren's new Proactive Chassis Control II, a 21-sensor monitoring suite designed to keep the car hustling down the road as fast as possible in all conditions.
That then begs the most important question.
And that is, is this a car that you could really live with on a daily basis?
[INAUDIBLE] I think that's a little bit debatable, but I think you actually could.
That suspension does an amazing job of smoothing out the road, while still delivering a really incredibly engaging feel.
The seven speed dual clutch transmission has seamless shifting technology, which means it's actually smoother than a lot of automatics I've driven.
There's a fair bit of cargo space up front, and this BMW sound system is [CLICKS TONGUE] pretty damn good.
The only concern is whether or not you could actually reasonably commute in a 300 $300,000 car.
Mind you it won't always be easy, those billionaire doors make paying tolls, taking tickets at parking garages, or heaven forbid, using a drive-thru a real challenge.
The cockpit is a bit cramped, though there's plenty of head room, and while the engine has a start stop feature, you'll be lucky to hit twenty miles per gallon.
But all that pales in comparison to the biggest challenge of them all, which is keeping your license.
The 720S like a lot of super cars has the effect of Distorting your perception of speed, such that going 70 in here feels like going 30 or 40 in any normal car.
It's really easy to slip into triple digit speeds.
And with 710 horsepower underneath your right foot, you have to be careful about getting on the gas, even with the traction control on.
But, on the right road with a generous enough speed limit, with the amount of power you've got here with the sharp steering, with that incredible suspension, and this incredible seven-speed transmission, driving this car is like a dream.
And now the final quest Is the McLaren 720S too much car for the road?
Honestly, I kinda think it is.
It's limits are so incredibly high that you can never begin to approach them out here on the open road.
And out here honestly, I think you'd probably have more fun in a car like the McLaren 570S whose limits are a little bit more approachable And which costs $100,000 less.
Now if cost is no object, in its element the 720S is sublime.
It's more raw and visceral than its immediate competition, yet it's still delightfully refined.
This is the stuff the dreams are made of, even if it only has two cup holders.
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