McLaren 750S 2023 Review | First Drive

The first production road car produced by the newly formed McLaren Automotive a dozen years back was powered by a twin turbo V8 engine unadorned by any hybrid drive. This new 750S is the last to make use of that powertrain. While there may be some very expensive, very low volume ‘specials’ to come that retain this configuration, so far as what passes of the mainstream down McLaren way, this is it. The Artura has already signalled the new direction of travel with its downsized, down-cylindered, hybrid-enhanced 3.0-litre V6 motor, and whatever succeeds the 750S will also be a hybrid, albeit it attached to a radically revised V8.

Expect the first of this new generation to come in about a year’s time, in the form of a car that will sit in the same conceptual space as the P1 did a decade ago: outrageous looks, a hybridised power output bound to be some distance into four figure territory and monster downforce.

But all that’s for later, for now the 750S is it: there’s not even going to be an LT version.

Its main, and some might say only direct rival is the Ferrari 296 GTB. There were those who thought that, because the Ferrari has a hybrid-assisted, 120-degree V6 motor like the Artura, they were the natural bedfellows, but if you look at price, performance, and power to weight ratio, it’s clear that this McLaren with its relatively old-school powertrain, is going to provide the Ferrari with a far bigger fright.

McLaren occasionally refers to the 750S as ‘all new’ – it’s a habit plenty of manufacturers have got into of late, but it’s no less annoying for that. By component count the truth is it’s about 30 per cent new compared to the 720S it replaces. Then again you won’t find many who’ve truly got to know the 720S who’ll say it was in need of replacing at all. Still the most broadly defined of all such cars, offering near hypercar performance while being bizarrely adept at the disciplines of daily driving, it remains one of the finest cars of its kind.

Mindful of this, the brief handed down by top brass to the engineering and design teams was essentially ‘the same, but more so’. So keep the driveability but, as a driving machine, make it sharper, faster and more involving. ‘Better’ in other words.

The aerodynamics have been tweaked, and include a new front splitter and active rear wing which is both lighter and has a 20 per cent greater surface area than the one it replaces, but as McLaren discloses no downforce figures relating to the car it can be safely concluded such modifications are more concerned with efficiency and appearance rather than substantial claims in aerodynamic grip. That rear wing and the slightly narrower, re-profiled ‘eye sockets’ at the front are the easiest way to distinguish the 750S from the car in replaces.

How fast do you want to go? Because however fast that is, if you’re both on a public road and possess any kind of instinct for survival, this McLaren will go faster. It is ridiculously, rapaciously, rabidly rapid.

But then so too was the 720S and I’d be amazed if anyone could really feel the difference the small increase in power and reduction in weight made without having the two side by side. Even so you should know this is a car that will reach 124mph (200km/h) in 7.2 seconds, having passed 62mph in 2.8 seconds along the way. Now consider that at least half of that journey will have been seriously constrained by the traction limitations of its rear drive configuration, and you start to get a sense of what’s going on here.

More important are the changes brought by an all-new single exit stainless steel exhaust which gives the car a new voice any 720S owner would notice at once. It’s not exactly V12 sonorous and never will be, but the rather flat blare of the 720S has been replaced by something far more tuneful, which has a sense of crescendo about it as the revs rise and is now genuinely quite exciting to listen to.

The shortened gear ratios are a mixed blessing. Yes, they provide even more urge in any given gear, adding to the sense of manic activity, but so too do they raise the revs at which the engine turns while cruising. Those familiar with the 720S and probably many other owners will find themselves pulling for another gear only to discover they’ve already run out.

By contrast, the chassis is close to flawless. McLaren’s aim of extending this car’s dynamic ability at one end while retaining its ride quality at the other has been triumphantly achieved. Even in the standard carbon shelled seats, you’ll know what a comfortable car this is going to be before you’re out of the car park. Better, McLaren has put greater distance between all the driving modes for both powertrain and chassis, so when you switch even into ‘sport’ let alone ‘race’ you can feel the car tense its muscles ready for the challenge ahead.

Even on a standard Pirelli P-Zero tyre, the car is essentially infallible on a dry road unless you’re doing something quite exceptionally unwise. So leave thoughts of over and understeer for the track and savour instead the feel of that proudly hydraulic rack, the astounding wheel control and cork from a bottle traction. It’s easy to drive in the wet too, so long as you put everything into comfort and concentrate on your throttle control. So poised and accurate is this car that you can still cover ground at improbable speed in complete safety.

On track, now wearing semi-slick Trofeo R rubber, the McLaren feels massively reassuring even though it will pull 170mph on any straight worthy of the mention. But at least at first there’s a slight disconnect between car and driver – for all the feel through the steering and chassis, it still seems like you’re joining the dots through the corners rather than flowing as you’d hope such a car might allow.

The secret is to be brave and dial back the systems – the ‘Variable Drift Control’ in particular – to the point where it’s essentially just you and the car, and let it slide. Then the 750S is nothing short of spectacular. The revisions to the front end ensure understeer is absolutely minimal, so whether you come out of a corner in a deliciously neutral drift or on full opposite lock with the Pirellis ablaze is entirely up to you. For the way it combines raw pace with such indulgence and reassurance, this is one of the most capable, enjoyable cars to use on track ever granted the right to wear a number plate.

Plenty of work has gone on here though whether any of it is enough to elevate the ambience to what you might hope for from a car costing just a few grand short of a quarter of a million pounds is another question again.

The most important changes concern the HMI – the Human Machine Interface. For better or worse, the revolving dash of the 720S has gone – saving another few grams as it goes – replaced by a static screen which nevertheless displays much the same kind of information and still turns into a racier version of its former self complete with a horizontal strip rev-counter when track mode is selected. But the graphics are still too small to read with the kind of micro-glance which is all that’s is often safely possible when the car is fully extended.

Better is the fact that the instrument pack is now mounted directly onto the steering column so wherever you choose to set the latter’s height and reach, your position relative to the display changes with it. You also no longer have to press a button to activate the driving modes: they’re now active all of the time and have been moved to within fingertip reach of the still completely unadorned steering wheel’s rim. And we should mention the new ‘Speedy Kiwi’ button which allows you to save your preferred default settings for the powertrain and chassis, whatever they might be, just by giving it a three second prod. There are plenty of other cars that have been doing this for a while – BMW M-cars for a start which actually allow you to programme two different default configurations – but it’s a first for McLaren and a welcome inclusion.

Technologically, the 750S is a strange blend of the rather traditional and the absolute cutting edge. The engine, for instance may have new forged pistons and increased boost pressure to release its additional power, but it’s still essentially the same unit used in the MP4-12C back in 2011 which was itself a development of an even older racing engine. The seven-speed double clutch gearbox and open diff are hardly state of the art either. It also retains hydraulic steering long after everyone else has gone over to electronic assistance, though we won’t be complaining about that.

But the carbon tub remains a feature you’ll find in no Ferrari 296 GTB or Lamborghini Huracán – even if, unlike the Artura’s, it’s still not built by McLaren and the suspension system still has the capacity to boggle the brain.

And it’s here that McLaren appears to have concentrated the bulk of its efforts. The way it works is to use conventional coil springs to control the ride frequency with programmable active dampers. The clever bit is the interlinked hydraulic roll circuit that obviates the need for conventional anti-roll bars and, says, McLaren brings a level of roll control beyond the scope of any conventional system. By separating out the ride and roll elements in this way and controlling them individually, optimal ride quality with steely roll control – seemingly diametrically opposed aims – are said to be achieved.

For the 750S the front track has been pushed out by 6mm while the overall spring rate has been very slightly decreased at the front and increased at the rear, all moves you’d associate with a desire to get the car more directly into the corner by mitigating understeer. The front suspension geometry is also rethought. The springs and dampers are a new design that drop a couple of kilos of unsprung mass while the accumulators in the struts themselves have been adjusted, the first time McLaren has used this technique as a means of controlling the suspension. But probably the great single gain is the fitting as standard on new ultra-light forged alloy wheels which reduce said unsprung mass by a further 3.5kg per corner, dramatically reducing the suspension’s workload and allowing an even greater degree of fine tuning.

For a revised version of an already six-year-old car, the 750S is an outstanding achievement, and proof if ever it were needed that life remains in the old concepts from a time before heavy, hybrid assistance was considered de rigueur. By Ferrari 296 GTB standards, the 750S is a defiantly traditional kind of supercar and while the Italian is more exciting to look at inside and out, and far more powerful, the British car is so much lighter that it’s actually the McLaren that is more accelerative and has the better power to weight ratio.

You’d need the two together to decide which is the better car for both are unquestionably outstanding, but the fact that McLaren has been able to work over an old design so effectively it even stands comparison to Ferrari’s genuinely all-new masterpiece is telling enough as it is. For it has done the seemingly impossible and taken a car considered by many to be the finest supercars of its or any era and turned it into something even more incredible, and even more worthy of the legendary name on its nose.