2017 McLaren 570GT

First zox Review
An entire industry has emerged to tell rich people what luxury is—and how they can spend more of their money on it. Not long ago this was an easy question to both ask and answer for almost any object: Is it made of gold and/or can I encrust it with diamonds? Yet modern moguls are no longer content with mere gaudy excess, and attempts to define contemporary luxury support a raft of publications aimed at those with more money than either taste or time. One recent suggestion we came across—in a well-thumbed magazine in a dentist’s waiting room—was that “luxury means not having to make compromises.”

Which, if accepted, would make the McLaren 570GT the most luxurious entry-level supercar in the world.

This is not, of course, luxury in the sense of having a boomerang antenna on the trunk, a well-stocked liquor cabinet in back, or The Donald’s signature on the front fender in 24-karat gold leaf. McLaren says that the 570GT has been designed to be both more comfortable and more usable than the 570S coupe—which already scores strongly on those attributes when compared with the pricier and angrier 650S. The GT gets a new fastback roofline that accommodates an extra luggage compartment, as well as a retuned suspension to make it more comfortable.

We’ll start with the obvious change: new rear bodywork trades the 570S coupe’s flying buttresses and small rear window for a glass tailgate. The hatch has a carbon-fiber frame and, in a neat touch, is hinged on opposite sides for left- and right-hand-drive markets so that it always opens on the curb side. Under the hatch lies what McLaren calls the “Touring Deck,” leather-lined and with various S&M-inspired baggage straps. In conjunction with the front trunk, there’s 12 cubic feet of stowage space.


As the rear cargo hold sits over the engine compartment, we planned to test the McLaren’s heatproofing by using the GT to transport some suitably luxurious chocolates—chocolates that we would then claim on our expense report.

McLaren had a similar, but better, idea: supplying us with a car that had a Fortnum & Mason hamper packed with perishable foodstuffs pre-positioned on this rear deck. This stayed in situ during an 80-mile driving route on some of the most spectacular mountain roads on Tenerife, a Spanish possession in the Canary Islands, during which the mid-mounted V-8 generated considerable heat and the chassis added some equally extensive g loads. The fact that the hamper’s contents were intact and unmelted when we got to eat them after arriving at the Teide observatory, which sits at an altitude of 7800 feet, confirmed both that the Touring Deck had not broiled the truffles and that we are extraordinarily lucky to have such a ridiculous excuse for a job.

Close Kin
Yet the journey also demonstrated that the 570GT does not drive quite as differently from the 570S as McLaren wanted us to believe. Mechanical changes include softer springs—the rates at the front were decreased by 15 percent, at the back by 10 percent—plus the arrival of slower steering. Software settings also have been tweaked, and with the chassis-altering Handling knob left in Normal, its softest position, the GT feels impressively pliant over rougher surfaces. But then we drove a 570S that McLaren had brought along for comparison, and it seemed to cope almost identically well. The reduced steering effort is evident only in the slowest of hairpin bends, which require fractionally more wheel twirling to navigate.


Straight-line performance is pretty much identical. McLaren says the 570GT weighs 121 pounds more than the S, which makes about as much difference as brimming its tank from empty. McLaren’s decision to equip the cars for the launch event with the optional carbon-ceramic brakes meant that the difference over the 570S, which has those brakes as standard, was even slighter. In factory acceleration numbers the GT is 0.2 second behind at 62 mph (at 3.4 versus 3.2 seconds) and trails by 0.3 second in the sprint from zero to 124 mph (dispatched in 9.8 seconds). The carbon brakes also meant we’re still waiting to tell you how a McLaren feels with the standard cast-iron units—the ceramic rotors feel slightly numb under gentle road use, but they shrug off big stops.

What impresses about the 570GT is its sheer dynamic bandwidth. With the Handling and Powertrain switches turned to their most aggressive Race modes, the car does a convincing impression of the 650S—raucous, mind-readingly reactive, and quick enough that you have to keep reminding yourself that this is McLaren’s junior model. Then turn both controls to Normal and leave the gearbox to shift for itself and the GT does indeed become a mostly convincing grand tourer, the V-8’s turbocharged midrange making it feel impressively responsive when driven at a scant number of tenths.

Another small change yields a completely disproportionate effect. A standard panoramic glass roof, similar to the one that was fitted to the P1, makes the cabin feel both much brighter and considerably bigger than that of the 570S—a neat trick given that, apart from trim materials, both are identical from their B-pillars forward. The glass roof alters the cabin acoustics, reflecting sound that gets absorbed by the S’s headliner, but the GT also gets more NVH reduction material and overall noise is, subjectively, slightly lower.


The largest issue for those cross-shopping the 570GT with rival grand tourers likely will be the prosaic issue of ingress and egress. Even with the Sports Series’s lowered sills, it’s still a clamber to climb in past those dihedral doors, a feat that—and we’re imagining here—would be difficult to pull off elegantly while wearing a cocktail dress. Once you’re in place, the low seating position and view forward has a natural rightness to it, like sitting in a beautifully trimmed prototype race car.

Touring, Grandly
It’d be hard to dislike a car that covers as many bases as the 570GT does—and one that manages to look great while doing so. Despite, in effect, wearing a backpack. It would be churlish to criticize it for driving with what feels like identical panache to its supposedly sportier 570S sister, and so we won’t do that. Yet neither does it feel significantly more refined nor more comfortable than the coupe, and it is still a measure more raw than most of its grand touring rivals. It’s a different answer to the same question but an equally valid response.