The
Lamborghini 720S It comes into our hands with an English license plate, although it is steering wheel on the continental side, that is, on the left, and although we can have it for several days, prudence makes us take it for a single day of mountain travel. The 720S impresses to see it, and more so in the yellow McLaren color that our unit sports. The doors have a forward and upward opening that may seem ‘posture’ but it is very comfortable to access
a sports car which, as the canons dictate, is not very broad.
The carbon fiber body and chassis, designed by the team that implemented this material in Formula 1, are visible, and makes the cabin a little narrower than usual.
The engine sits
in rear center position, the best for a sports car, and the propulsion is later, although we will go into detail about the mechanics later. As for design, McLaren has managed to find its place without copying others, with shapes that are easily identified with the brand. I especially like the way in which they have solved the side air intake, and with it hide the opening of the doors. The headlights don’t look the most attractive, but they are very personal, and the rear is simply brutal, unique, a role model of integrating beauty and functionality: lights, grills, exhausts… everything fits.
Inside the show ends, and it is that, compared to the outside it is an ‘average’ car, or is it that we are getting used to the extravagances? The fact is that the steering wheel is round! Almost unbelievable, and it doesn’t have any built-in controls or buttons, unlike, for example, Ferrari, which
removed the turn signal levers to integrate all the controls on the steering wheel next to the ‘manettino’. Two different ways of offering the same thing: riding with passion to the limit.
Of course, the McLaren clock box has an ace up its sleeve and, in sport mode, it turns vertically to offer only the minimum information to the driver. In the center of the console, vertical and well presented, are the gear buttons, the driving modes and those that allow you to choose the degree of skidding in the new ‘drift type’ mode, as well as the screen. Our hands sweat,
the outside of the car smells like ‘ferodo’ as the veterans would say and, when getting out of our car through the spectacular and practical door that opens vertically, the brakes creak and ‘sound like popcorn’ as a good friend says.
The cold of the Madrid mountains makes itself felt on our backs, dampened by tension, more than by effort, and it is that although this machine is not physically demanding, it needs all the available mental attention to link the curves like we’ve done it so far, after two hours behind the wheel that started in
a discreet parking on the outskirts of Madrid, where they gave us the car keys.
Of all the brands on the market, no McLaren had yet passed through our hands, a press unit we mean. Both as passengers and behind the wheel we had ‘tasted’ some units, especially the first MP4-12C, the name with which the brand launched its range of models in 2011, but being private cars, we never commit excesses.
This absence of test units is, in part, because the brand is very young. The racing team is one of the greats of Formula 1 and now it is also in Indycar or Formula E. As for street cars,
McLaren launched the McLaren F1 in the nineties, a three-seater with central driving with which they came to win the 24 hours of Le Mans. But the current project is very different.
racing with ferrari
The brand embarked on the colossal odyssey of catching up with Ferrari or Lamborghini by manufacturing sports cars, and has put all its know-how into it: carbon fiber chassis, a very powerful V8 almost racing engine and, almost from the outset, the launch of a hybrid supercar like the P1. This allowed, since its arrival on the market in 2011, McLaren to be placed in the Olympus of brands “must have” if you have
a high purchasing power and you collect carsbut after those first years you have to stay in the ‘lightweight’, and the brand has been refining its launches and expanding its commercial network, in the case of Spain with a dealer in Barcelona that is, simply, the best in the world of Mark.
McLaren now has a range of more ‘comfortable’ models –GT or Gran Turismo–, one of sportier cars –Super Series or Sport Series– and a range for exclusive and very limited editions called ‘Ultimate’ –as the well-known
McLaren Senna–, and the best thing is that each of its cars is named for its power and category, so that the 720S is a model of 720 CV of the Sport series. How far is that McLaren MP4-12C with which it was released on the market!
At the wheel of a supercar
We make the four-liter V8 roar, two turbos and 720 CV, illuminated by some red leds, and we go to the Sierra de Madrid. The figures for this car are outrageous: it accelerates from 0 to 100 in 2.9 seconds, exceeds 340 per hour and weighs only 1,500 kilos with the driver on board. Even so, we go ‘slowly’, enjoying what would be a ‘grand tourer’, that is, a car to travel long distances with good suspension comfort.
This car does the job.Another thing is the luggage, which would go something just in the front trunk -of 150 liters- or in the rear of 210 liters.
We do not go over 120 per hour for fear that those who record us with their mobile phones putting their lives at stake will take us out on the networks, and it is that although the McLarens are beginning to be common in sports concentrations, they are not so much in the street, and its ‘neck-turning’ effect continues to be of the first order.
We face the saw and start the sport mode. There is an extra one that would allow us to drift controlling
their degree of inclination, and although the large parking lots for skiers, empty in the last days of autumn, are tempting, the truth is that we want them to leave us a McLaren again, and crushing the Pirelli PZero making ‘donuts’ at the first change would nullify our chances for a second date. So we hit the curves.
The steering of the 720S perfectly copies what happens under the asphalt. It is very sensitive and fast, and allows you to assess the grip of the car and whether or not to start stepping on the accelerator more. The exhaust in sport mode fills the cabin, with a nice sound, although not with the melody that came out a few years ago from
atmospheric engines. It doesn’t seem as difficult to drive as other cars of this caliber, so we began to speed up the braking with the carbon-ceramic brakes, to link the curve and feel comfortable in the car. We are not experts in models of this type, but the driving flows by itself, it is not like other sports cars in which the sensations come from great braking, great acceleration or a lot of noise. Here each line is a ‘whole’, linking curves and acceleration incessantly.
It’s time to raise the adrenaline level a bit, so we speed up the gears and the engine enters a second, sportier phase of operation. It spins faster, hits higher revs with more rage, and the whole car accompanies the engine in its new task: cutting time from time. The asphalt is somewhat wet but even so the 720S does not make strangers and moves and corrects everything we do with the wheel at a crushing speed. On the short straights we put our foot down, and the McLaren wakes up its zigzagging rear, and
you have to be careful not to lift your foot so as not to enter the electronic controls. It is, in a way, easy to carry, without instilling the respect of the Italians, made of steel or aluminum and therefore heavier, and with more pointed engines, with more character, but we don’t know if they are as effective in speed as the 720 CV from this Briton, whose seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox works with inexhaustible precision.
All in favor of efficiency
It is time to value the car. You fall in love with this McLaren for its precision, for its interior comfort, for its easy handling of our errors when drawing or with the paddle shifters, it is a good car, let’s say, to learn to drive an elite supercar without ‘dying trying’ figuratively, of course.
Is
impractical inside, it has few places to leave objects, it is not very technological and its multimedia team does not seek to surprise with false artifices. The 720S dazzles with its striking bodywork but loses a bit of steam for its understated interior. The mechanics, yes, is on another level, one in which, after stopping at a bend in the road, we left thinking that, although we are not going as fast as possible, there would be no car capable of surpassing this one in this road, whatever its power or brand.
That is what surprises us. It does not have the rage of an AMG GT, nor the finesse of a Porsche 911, nor the character of a Lamborghini Huracán nor the charisma of a Ferrari F8, but still, it attracts us to the fullest. It is perhaps its extremely effective mechanics, the kind that does not make you realize that you have raised your driving level to take it a couple of steps higher, perhaps that is why your hands sweat, we did not think we were capable of so much.
We refrigerate the car and stop to record the corresponding video for our YouTube channel and they ask us the price. We have not even looked at it, it is not something that tends to worry a lot to those who look at these cars but, of course!, you have to know, and it is about 285,000 euros, options aside, of which surely our unit has a good pinch . It is more expensive than its rivals, and that is also
a declaration of intentBecause we are not dealing with a McLaren, but with the most powerful of the Super Series before moving on to limited editions.
We return to the capital and return the keys captivated by the spell of this car. Would we put it in the garage before one of the sports ‘classics’? It’s hard to know, as there has been no luck with ‘El Gordo’, we’ll wait for the ‘Niño lottery’ to see if the future puts us in this fantastic position.
For those who can buy it without a lottery involvedPerhaps this car lacks a ‘scoundrel’ point, either in the interior, in the sound of the exhaust or in the response of the engine and gearbox. The 720S is very ‘racing’ where each part follows a function, but a spicier version would delight fans, who would surely pay extra for those doses of exclusivity…
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