Review: McLaren 570S

The Lamborghini Miura, a languorously slinky and unapologetically brash car, was widely hailed as the world’s first supercar when it appeared in 1966. The superlative wasn’t coined for mere exceptionalism; it was inspired by the Miura's over-the-top styling and near-200 mph top speed, markers of unprecedented excess.

These days, an armada of cars deliver performance once the exclusive domain of supercars, from muscular Corvettes and Dodge Hellcats to sharply honed Mercedes-Benz AMGs and BMW Ms. The upper echelon of performance is ruled by the Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 Spyder, and McLaren P1, seven-figure machines so far beyond anything else they're called hypercars.

Nowadays, the supercar descriptor applies to quarter-million dollar stuff like the Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari 488, which deliver visceral performance without the mind-warping insanity of the top tier triumvirate.

Just below them you'll find a gray zone of garden-variety sports cars and near exotics where more workaday performance is measured in equal parts by merit and mystique. This is where McLaren’s new 570S seeks to carve a niche for itself.

In this new world order where sports cars and supercars rub elbows, the baby 570S, starting at $184,900, enters that nebulous area with trickle-down styling that recalls McLaren's $265,500 650S, and its fierce big brother, the $1.1 million P1.

For some market context, you can get a top dog Porsche 911 Turbo S, aluminum-bodied Audi R8 V10, or a heavily optioned Acura NSX for less than you'd pay for the 570S. Add enough money to buy a Porsche Cayman and you approach the Ferrari 488 GTB or Lamborghini Huracán, two wilder, arguably more supercar-ish players. McLaren (humbly) rectifies the disparity by calling the 570S a “Sport” model, as opposed to its the Super Series designation of its 650S/675LT models or the “Ultimate” series P1.

What justifies the $80,000 price differential between the 570S and 650S? For starters, the 650’s complex hydraulic suspension is ditched for a more conventional roll bar and adaptive damper setup. The cheaper car also ditches some carbon fiber panels in favor of aluminum, portions of which are constructed using a superform technique which enables more intricate shapes like the rear deck.

Though it offers a less lavish, more compact presence on the road, the 570S isn’t necessarily a compromised 650S. For starters, it delivers a potent power-to-weight ratio, a top speed of 204 mph, and combined EU cycle fuel economy figures of 26.6 mpg—good enough to avoid the gas guzzler tax.

Though downmarket of its stablemates, the 570S experience starts with a sense of supercar occasion: its upwardly sweeping (aka, billionaire) doors. Once inside, the mood is decidedly functional, with generous Napa leather surfaces but otherwise spartan expanses of space, punctuated by a floating multimedia screen (in space-saving portrait landscape) and a new TFT display that switches layout according to drive mode. Twin dials adjust suspension and traction control settings (“H” for handling, “P” for powertrain), while a launch control button instigates a scary fast sprint to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds.

For the 570S, McLaren softened things up a bit. The company's monocell carbon fiber chassis, used across its lineup, has been modified with narrower sills for easier entry and exit. There’s a tad more friendliness to this interior, with tiny water bottle-sized cubbies in the doors, more accommodating seats, and McLaren’s inaugural use of vanity mirrors. Although minor issues like a noisy wind leak revealed there's some work to do before production starts, there is a sense of finely honed engineering. Knobs and switches actuate with reassuring clicks, and even the turn signal stalks—ergonomically curved slivers of aluminum—deliver a sense of tactile satisfaction.

Though less visually dramatic than its siblings, the 570S still possesses an air of drama. With its squinty face, sonorous exhaust and jarring color palate, the 570S carves through town with the subtlety of a freight train. Pull over and swing open those doors, and boom: this thing is all supercar.

The 570S’s athleticism seems oversized on public roads, like wielding a saber to slice a grape, but it laps a track with satisfying tenacity. I can point the nose accurately into corners, thanks in part to brake steering, which helps instigate yaw action by braking the inside rear wheel. Though other manufacturers use the technology, McLaren famously leveraged it in Formula 1 racing, where it was so effective it was banned after the 1997 season.

You can tell a lot about a performance car within moments of initial acceleration, and the first few hundred feet of pavement speak volumes to the 570S’s demeanor. The $3,860 sport exhaust makes the car's intentions audibly clear, both inside the cabin and to anyone within earshot. Drop the pedal and the engine pulls gradually. Around 3,500 rpm, it winds up, slingshotting through the midrange before burying itself just past the 8,000 rpm mark. The long-legged rush of acceleration is arguably less visceral than the naturally aspirated Lamborghini Huracán’s stomach-stirring pull. It's thrilling nonetheless, augmented by the faint whir of turbochargers and organ-shifting g forces. More than once, the long-winded wind-up made me giggle out loud, just like I used to when power-sliding my Big Wheel.

Carbon fiber racing seats (a $5,960 option available in American—ahem, large—sizing) are snug but accommodating against my hips and back, transmitting road texture with surprising fidelity and recalling laser-focused driver cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 and the late, great Lotus Elise. The feeling is firm but not jarring, clear but not annoying, and lively enough to give you a serious case of the tingles. In a good way.

Forget about the Normal, Sport, and even Track powertrain settings. Those calibrations, at least in the pre-production car I drove, neuter the throttle enough in corners to leave you punching the steering wheel. The optimal track setting requires Dynamic mode, which sends the nanny home for the day, facilitating satisfying tail slides and drifts. Though sometimes untidy and potentially counterproductive, the ability to rotate the car more freely enables a level of artistry to track driving, allowing you pitch the nose and tail with ease by stabbing the brakes or jabbing the throttle.

Slam the left pedal hard at high speeds, and the chassis wiggles as the 570S’s suspension unsettles. The car's relative looseness isn’t just attributable to the lack of active aerodynamics you get on the 650S, it’s fueled by the fact that the car is essentially aero neutral. It doesn't offer significant lift or downforce at speed, creating a dynamic that’s disconcerting or playful, depending on your disposition. The brakes, massive carbon ceramic rotors, with vise-like calipers, are more than up to the task of hauling you down from speed.

Though it’s the "entry level" McLaren, the 570S’s compelling dynamics are explained by its impressive equipment list. At the core is the latest iteration of McLaren’s carbon fiber chassis, which weighs only 165 pounds and keeps the 570S to a svelte 3,186 pounds. That's 233 less than a Huracán LP610-4 and 352 less than a Porsche 911 Turbo S.

The twin-turbo 3.8-liter V8 claims 30 percent new components compared to its 650S application. It produces—you guessed it—570 metric horsepower, or 562 horsepower for the stars and stripes set. The dual-clutch 7-speed Graziano transmission is lifted from the 650S, but mapped differently. The bargain McLaren also offers a new traction control system that adds that crucial Dynamic setting, which benefits from an improved pump and dual valve system, and is available in Sport and Track modes.

Lessons learned from the P1 include the incorporation of what McLaren calls floating tendons, small visible pods that attach the door skin to the body and enable more laminar airflow. The tight hug of wind increases the volume of air that enters the engine’s cooling ducts, and subsequently keeps the overall openings smaller, enabling a more diminutive footprint. Finally, a trickle-down theory that actually works.

Is the McLaren 570S a sports car or a supercar? The manufacturer’s insistence on the former is a telling one, mostly because a majority of red-blooded enthusiasts would pin it as the latter. Sharp, lightweight, and oozing with seat-of-the-pants feedback, the 570S is built for drivers, not poseurs, a reality that saves those slick dihedral doors from seeming like a look-at-me frivolity.

Compared to brands like Ferrari (founded in 1947), Porsche (1948), and Lamborghini (1963), McLaren’s six year-old automotive division is a child on the sports car scene, but also a prodigy. The 570S may lack the sensational feedback of a 488, the astounding bandwidth of the 911 Turbo, or the snorting rawness of the Huracán. But when viewed as a part of the exotic car taxonomy, it fulfills a wonderfully specific niche for drivers who crave athleticism without the histrionics. On that merit alone, the McLaren 570S proves itself rather super indeed.