New 2018 Mclaren 720S:Most Beautiful Design

The 720S is a beautiful, sleek GT car, possibly the most aerodynamically exciting road car to come from the U.K. since the Jaguar E-type 56 years ago. My main criticism of volume-production McLarens — all of which until now used the same basic 3.8 liter V-8 engines and carbon-fiber monocoques — has been the gaping holes in the body sides required to provide enough cooling for the hot sections within the outer envelope. This new design has a beautifully simplified outer form and a complex internal-airflow management system that permits more power than any modern McLaren has enjoyed up to now. And the company achieved it without blatant air passages seen on the racing-oriented Ford GT or the road version of the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003 GT.

Most recent high-performance cars have had some kind of aerodynamic covering over their headlamps. The 720S does outline a large lighting area, so cleverly shaped and integrated into the whole that it convinces you there’s a cover. But it is completely open, its black carbon-fiber internal surfaces sculpted in voluptuous curves to direct airflow.

Rob Melville, McLaren Automotive’s thoughtful and reflective chief designer, was keen to recapture the simplicity that so memorably characterized the first non-racing mid-engine supercar, Lamborghini’s Miura, without copying it. That’s not easy when dealing with three times the horsepower and thus the enormously increased heat load imposed by two turbochargers.

The answer was to increase frontal air-intake area without a gigantic grille by putting the lamps in open scoops and to route most of the cooling air internally, allowing smooth flanks marked with strong character lines and only very small inlets low on the body behind the door to cool the turbochargers’ radiators. Air is ducted through the doors in open-top trenches, which increase in area as they move rearward, so there are four longitudinal skins in the upper part of each door. Those doors, in turn, are hinged to move upward and a bit inward, rather than just pivoting up on a horizontal transverse-hinge axis. This is a brilliant solution seen once before — on the very mundane Toyota Sera, of all things. It works brilliantly here, making cabin access easy and door closing equally facile, neither case existing on the 570 models.

One of the cabin’s greatest attributes is the exceptional all-around visibility, achieved by multiple transparencies: windshield, two lateral and two roof door glasses, the backlight, two rear-quarter windows, and two panes in the C pillar itself. The result is luminous, and you can really see out well in all directions, not common in mid-engine machines.

There are a few styling matters I quarrel with. The three louvers at the end of the roof seem too big, a bit crude and disproportionate to the delicacy of much of the detailing. The exhaust outlets cut into the bumper recall economy cars where the engineers and stylists seem never to have talked to each other. But these are minor quibbles. What impresses me most is the side profile’s purity and elegance. A driver’s head is almost exactly at mid-wheelbase, depending on seat adjustment, of course, but it’s a good place for the inner ear to be to sense the car’s movements.


An important innovation is a two-version instrument panel. In standard mode, the color screen presents a traditional tachometer in which a digital speedometer and the gear indicator are embedded, flanked by readings for the trip odometer, hours since engine start, temperature and fuel gauge, and speed and fuel-consumption figures. But when you’re really going hard, the panel physically pivots to take up less of the view ahead and includes only a racing-style tach and indicators of gear engaged and your speed. This is likely to be widely seen in future vehicles.

The 720S is surely the best-looking shape McLaren has produced so far, and it bodes well for forth-coming top-of-the-range models.
Source-automobilemag