McLaren Speedtail Hits 250mph With Ease During Cape Canaveral Test Sessions
- Thread starter RocZX
- 278 comments
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- NRW
- Vinylshark
Dunno if it's just me, but the rear seats look kinda uncomfortable to sit in, with part of the front cut off to fit in the driver seat.
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- Barcelona
- topu999
I just had a thought: could you Photoshop fellas shorten the rear bodywork without changing the wheelbase? I'd do it myself but I don't have access to PS nowadays.
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- United States
- monkeylima
That interior 
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- 15,316
- TRAPPIST-1g
- ProjectWHaT
- 7,720
- Heaven
Front is nice the rest is not 
- 11,327
- Marin County
The interior looks kinda cheap to me. Look at those bezels around the side 'mirror' screens!
I don't think it's necessarily your age, directly. Hypercar unveilings didn't used to happen monthly. I feel like they pretty much do now (if not weekly), and at least I feel like the idea of the supercar/hypercar isn't as special anymore. It doesn't appear to be difficult to build a road car that does 200mph or even 250mph. When the Mclaren F1 came out, it felt like something absolutely heroic to hit 241mph...now that same sort of speed seems fairly routine. I find it hard to care about the Speedtail even if it is objectively pretty awe-inspiring. What makes it better or more special than a Bugatti Chiron? I don't think it looks better. It's not faster. It will be more rare I guess, but Mclaren has become kind of bland in my eyes.
[mildly off topic, likely controversial]:When I have more time on my hands, I'd like to do a little research to see how many cheap sports cars and how many very expensive sports cars were available, say, in 1995 and compare it to today. I feel like the numbers might be a mirror of each other....and I think that is what is so disappointing to me about each and every new hypercar....I feel like the affordable end of the market is shrinking while the crazy-expensive end is expanding rapidly. I guess I better get rich....
I don't think it's necessarily your age, directly. Hypercar unveilings didn't used to happen monthly. I feel like they pretty much do now (if not weekly), and at least I feel like the idea of the supercar/hypercar isn't as special anymore. It doesn't appear to be difficult to build a road car that does 200mph or even 250mph. When the Mclaren F1 came out, it felt like something absolutely heroic to hit 241mph...now that same sort of speed seems fairly routine. I find it hard to care about the Speedtail even if it is objectively pretty awe-inspiring. What makes it better or more special than a Bugatti Chiron? I don't think it looks better. It's not faster. It will be more rare I guess, but Mclaren has become kind of bland in my eyes.
[mildly off topic, likely controversial]:When I have more time on my hands, I'd like to do a little research to see how many cheap sports cars and how many very expensive sports cars were available, say, in 1995 and compare it to today. I feel like the numbers might be a mirror of each other....and I think that is what is so disappointing to me about each and every new hypercar....I feel like the affordable end of the market is shrinking while the crazy-expensive end is expanding rapidly. I guess I better get rich....
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- TRAPPIST-1g
- ProjectWHaT
https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1119569_heres-why-mclarens-speedtail-isnt-street-legal-in-us
The Speedtail is not street legal in the US because 106 cars are being made so it wasn't worth federalizing it.
Although it's not street legal, 35 of the cars will come to America under the "Show or Display" rules
The Speedtail is not street legal in the US because 106 cars are being made so it wasn't worth federalizing it.
Although it's not street legal, 35 of the cars will come to America under the "Show or Display" rules
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- Newport
- NFSCARBON1
Paint it jet black and you've got the perfect car to remake The Wraith
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- ask
- 13,739
- Adelaide
- Neomone
I think it's not so much that it isn't difficult, as much as it's a problem that can be solved by just throwing stupid amounts of money at it. The F1 did the same in some ways I suppose, but the F1 had a clear design goal of being the ultimate road car. The massive speed and everything else is a consequence of that design goal and it was relatively difficult to achieve with some of the other limitations that the road car design imposed, like an NA engine.
The other icon of that era, the F40, is kind of the opposite in design philosophy I suppose. It was designed to be a great track car, no compromises to the driving experience for the sake of luxuries. I think because both cars have such clear visionary design they're quite impressive in what they've achieved.
Something like the Speedtail seems designed purely to inflate genital size. It doesn't seem like a car that's been designed to be great to drive, it seems like a car to show off with. There's almost nowhere in the world that you can get a car up to those speeds to start with, so it's largely pointless.
On the plus side, if you don't mind a bit of tinkering and maintenance, there's a whole bunch of really great sports cars from the 90's and 00's that are getting pretty cheap for what they are. Some are overpriced, like many of the Japanese tuner cars. But there's still plenty of great sports cars to buy if you're interested.
As an example, look at the prices of 996s if you want incredible value for money out of your sports car (add a couple grand to have the IMS changed out). They're unlikely ever to be a collector's 911, but that's exactly the point. They still drive great if that's what you're after, but you don't have to pay a premium for them.
And while something like the Speedtail is cool looking, if an average Joe goes to a track day I suspect they'd probably have a lot more fun in a prepped Miata than the Speedtail. Unless your life's wish is to go 250mph, I don't think you need to spend silly cash in order to get a great driving experience.
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- Neomone
I don't disagree. It is pointless. There's no good reason to pursue top speed as a goal in and of itself in a road car, just as there's no point having a Formula 1 car that does 500mph if there's no situation in which it could be able to use that power and you have to make other sacrifices to do it.
If a car ends up with a very high top speed as a result of other design goals, like the Macca F1 or 300SL, then so be it. If it's just being done so that you can say you have the car with the biggest numbers, then I think that's dumb and just bad design. Good marketing perhaps, but bad design.
Note that I don't think that this invalidates things like land speed records or things like Bonneville speed races. Humans challenging themselves is a great thing and should be encouraged. But for those you build one or two in order to achieve what you need to. For a commercial product, it should be designed with a purpose. If that purpose is to make the buyer feel like they've got a massive genital, it seems disingenuous to pretend that it's about top speed. To some extent I guess that's true of all ludicrously expensive cars, but at least stuff like the P1, LaFerrari and 918 made the pretense of being really amazing drivers cars.
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I'll give them a thumbs up for continuing to make new vehicles, but I still don't feel the F1 can be topped. It's different to what Ferrari and Porsche have done. They've made cars better and better, since the F40 and 959. With more character and more relevant to the supercar/hyper car ethos, if you will.
Of course, I'm not a customer for this car(if I had hit that 2.1billion Powerball, who knows?). So, it's easy for me to dismiss the Speedball. Guess we'll wait for there next hyped up project.
Of course, I'm not a customer for this car(if I had hit that 2.1billion Powerball, who knows?). So, it's easy for me to dismiss the Speedball. Guess we'll wait for there next hyped up project.
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- Portugal
Why not do the same like they did with SENNA... a GTR version
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- GTP_Famine
No point.Why not do the same like they did with SENNA... a GTR version
The Speedtail is designed to not disturb the air as it passes through. The whole thing is built around smooth airflow - it takes energy to make smooth air turbulent; that energy comes from the thing passing through it - so it can go fast, efficiently and in a straight line.
The Senna is designed to get hold of the air and batter it into submission, redirecting it in the most brutal fashion possible to create downforce. This is so the car gets squash into the floor so it can go fast around corners.
Taking a car that's designed from the outset to make the air wonder where it went and make it into a car that's supposed to mug the air and leave it in hospital is a pointless exercise.
Incidentally, the McLaren F1 could do 243mph and still had a bit to give, with 627hp. The Speedtail is pencilled in at 250mph with 1,035hp, but McLaren says it's the most aerodynamically efficient car it's ever made.
I'm having trouble working out why it's only marginally faster despite being way more powerful and more aerodynamic, but I can only come up with the idea that the Speedtail has a larger frontal area (the F1 is actually quite small) and/or that the motors don't operate in Velocity Mode as they'll be out of juice on the acceleration or may overheat and derate due to the change in airflow to the high-temperature radiators at speed.
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