McLaren 570S

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21 Feb 2006
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Borrowing one tomorrow morning for a couple of hours and really looking forward to it. Heard only good things about the car and have put off driving one until I could see my owning one. Will put up a report tomorrow after the drive, will take pictures if I am able but plan to give it a mix of different roads and see what I think. It will be funny turning up to the dealer in my Polo GTI but luckily I know a load of the chaps there as they used to work at the OPC I bought my GT3 from.

It's a hard life...but someone has to do it :)
 
Fab pieces of kit. Likely where I'd put my money. Like a scaled-up Lotus with a big boosty V8. Perfect! Looking forward to seeing what you make of it.
 
My fave sort of weekend morning. Up early, shower, breakfast, coffee for the journey, some tunes then play with cars for a few hours and back home. At which point I will head out again to pick up a fixed R8 and then hoon it home with my wife trying her damnedest to keep up. To be fair she is a fair peddler too so that tends to make us smile :)
 
Looking forward to your review. I reckon you'll get back in the R8 (if it's actually fixed), realise it's ridiculously good and save your cash. The NA V10 is such a pleasure, I've only driven an old Gallardo which was amazing, so I imagine they've improved it even more since then.
 
Gathering my thoughts right now, but my first impressions are what an incredible road car McLaren have built with very little experience. It mixes all the ingredients I look for in a car brilliantly and now I have to do some man maths to work out how and when I can buy one. Truly game changing to anything I have driven before in the mix of feel, power, usability and event and though not perfect, a 6 GT3 still has better steering, it is still one hell of a fantastic car. Loads of pictures of this morning so will upload them when I have more time and add some further comments when I have gathered my thoughts.

Collecting the R8 in a bit which is 2 hours away from me and really looking forward to getting that back. Need to fix the dashboard, fix a small paint mark, fix the windscreen and fix the carbon blade scuff and also take it back to Shorade for a discussion as it seems they have not fitted the front grill correctly (missing part) and I now have a pipe hanging down which has pleased me no end. That will be a discussion for next week when I have time and am not flying about Europe.

To add outside of price and noise I can see zero reason for buying a new R8 V10+ over a 570S. It is better in so many ways and quicker too.
 
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If you look closely this has something for everyone. Some 5 series for Fox and a Polo GTI for the Instagram generation, a rare and powerful beast.
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Some interior detailing, which I think is really nice.
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I have to complement McLaren Solihull too who were exceptionally professional and made the whole experience really good and unhurried today.
 
Been considering one of these for my 40th so was looking to get a test drive with the local dealer in a week or two.

Interior has a couple of dodgy (cheap) looking bits, behind the doors at bottom of the window level has a odd bit, plus the inside of the centre storage looks a bit crap, but other than that looks great inside and out.

How big is the boot? It's supposed to be decently sized for a couple (I assume small) cases?

I hear serving and parts are expensive (but then what do you expect!)
 
Servicing is 10K miles or 12 months. £750 or £1300 so not at all expensive for such a car. Warranty is 3 years or 100K miles and to renew is circa £2500 which again for this type of car is good. McLaren will warranty for track work, but you need to have a pre-track day check followed by an after track day check, which I feel is a bit silly and a licence to print money for the dealers. If you do a McLaren track day then this is included, but I think those days are priced high to cover it. Running costs seem reasonable and now they have the reliability in a better place than they did with the 12C I think it's less of a risk.
 
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McLarens for me are strange. In the flesh they are breathtaking, they really come alive and look incredible but photos seem to do them no justice at all. I have seen several images of the 720 and a mate took delivery of a grey one this week and still the photos don't really do it justice. However, in the flesh all of them are incredible to behold and the new 720 is magnificent. I didn't like the lights in pictures and from some angles I felt it looked wrong but in the flesh from any angle it looked magnificent, red over grey for me which is one of three launch colours I believe.

Again Solihull were superb and I have been speaking with them for over a year and know some of the chaps from their time at Porsche. Now need a few things to happen as planned over next few weeks and then should be able to push the button on one but likely to be a factory order so won't see a car until next year. At least I now understand the options and costs because the online configuration tool misses one thing. A price!
 
The other thing I found comical is that I put about 400 miles on one in a single hit and averaged about 29mpg. Can't complain at all! :D

It is a clever car that way. In soft settings you can just waft along like a normal car. I was hugely impressed by the view out front and all around. The front end provides for a really good sighting and the mirrors give you great visibility. I drove a car with normal seats which were superb.....until I sat in a car with full carbon buckets and those were out of this world good. It is an easy car to drive normally and that is important on a long drive to somewhere nice.
 
McLaren will warranty for track work, but you need to have a pre-track day check followed by an after track day check, which I feel is a bit silly and a licence to print money for the dealers. If you do a McLaren track day then this is included, but I think those days are priced high to cover it.

How would they know if warranty work required was a result of tracking it or normal driving?
 
Would the warranty be null and void if the GPS logged you at a track?

That's a good point. You'd either have to disable the GPS before any track work (which kinda defeats it's purpose) or clear all the data after a track session - assuming the "fault' necessitating a warranty fix doesn't stop you doing that. I suppose if you can afford a 570s the cost of the extra checks doesn't really matter. I was more thinking of the inconvenience, but I should image Mclaren have a pretty good pickup and drop off system.
 
My only problem with that particular garage is the number of times ive gone in and pointed out some really nasty paintwork and they were completely unaware or just ignoring it, im going with the unaware option because on follow up visits it is usually sorted.

They do however usually have a lovely selection of cars in stock :)
 
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Love it mate, belated happy half a century I suppose :D

Lovely machine, tame as a kitten or wild as a cheetah.
 
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