McLaren Artura.
This car, the Artura, marks a new era for McLaren.
Not that this is obvious at first glance. Sure, the Artura’s other-worldly form is attention-grabbing, especially in this particular car’s aptly alien-green paint.
But that dramatic shape is also comfortingly familiar, continuing McLaren’s distinctive design language tracing back to the P1 hypercar, with its extreme cab-forward stance, bodywork shrink-wrapped around the wheels and cabin, fighter-jet like glasshouse, gaping air intakes on the flanks and a rear end dominated by a full-width perforated grille for optimised heat venting.
The headlamps feature a clever amalgam of the sunken eye-socket glare of the 720S and McLaren’s trademark inverted-J style that has served the P1, 650S and the like so well.
But it’s under that skin that the real changes lie. McLaren describes the Artura as its first High-Performance Hybrid supercar. While it may well be the first McLaren to wear such a self-coined moniker, it is not in fact McLaren’s first hybrid road car – the P1 was there first, a full decade ago, and the more recent Speedtail was likewise hybridised.
Still, the Artura inhabits a far different space from the limited-run P1 and Speedtail hypercars, and as the harbinger for the eventual adoption of hybrid drivetrains across the rest of McLaren’s mainstream model range, it is hugely significant.
OILY – AND ELECTRIC – BITS
The other novel aspect of the Artura’s drivetrain is its combustion engine – an all-new twin-turbocharged 3-litre V6 makes its bow in the back of this car, marking a departure from the 3.8- and 4-litre twin-turbo V8s that have powered every McLaren road car since the 2011 MP4-12C.
The all-aluminium V6 sits 190mm shorter and 50kg lighter than the old V8, and the wide angle (120 degrees) of its 2 banks usefully lowers its centre of gravity. The twin turbochargers sit within the engine’s “vee” cavity, making the whole unit more compact while allowing for faster spooling due to the proximity of the turbos to the engine’s exhaust ports.
At 7500rpm the V6 delivers 577bhp to the rear wheels via an 8-speed dual-clutch transmission (the previous V8 was mated to a 7-speed unit). Allied to the V6 is the electric powertrain – an E-motor which sits within the bell housing of that 8-speed gearbox, and which delivers 94bhp and up to 225Nm of torque.
Neatly, the E-motor also serves as the transmission’s reverse gear (the gearbox itself has no reverse gear) by simply spinning in the opposite direction.
The E-motor is fed by a 7.4kWh lithium-ion battery pack mounted on the floor of the carbon fibre monocoque behind the cabin for ideal weight distribution. You charge them by plugging the car into an external power source, but the batteries also harvest power from the combustion engine on the move.
Using its E-motor alone the Artura can hit 130km/h, and it can also manage up to 31km on pure electric power (though not at 130km/h).
In combination the engine and E-motor serve up peak outputs of 671bhp and 720Nm (at just 2250rpm!), thrusting the Artura into the horizon at a blinding rate. Raw figures? 100km/h in 3.0 seconds, flat, 200km.h in 8.3 seconds, and 300km/h in just 21.5 seconds, on the way to a top speed of 330km/h.
Impressively for a plug-in hybrid, the Artura weighs just 1498kg – testimony to extreme weight-saving measures such as a carbon monocoque, 25% less electric cabling, the smaller, lighter engine, and the fact that the entire hybrid componentry – including the battery pack and E-motor – weighs just 130kg.
NEW COCKPIT
Swing the trademark dihedral door upwards and you realise that this philosophy of spareness is epitomised too by the minimalist cabin architecture.
Trimmed generously in Alcantara but otherwise devoid of gratuitous flourishes, the Artura’s cockpit is a pure, driver-centric workplace. You drop down into a seat mounted so low that you have a great view up SUVs’ rear ends.
The seating position itself is comfy, the seat gripping you firmly but gently in the right places, and the small steering wheel is perfectly placed and thankfully unadorned with the myriad buttons, toggles and touchpads that blight most modern-day wheels.
The powertrain and chassis mode selectors have migrated to the top left and right of the instrument binnacle, within easy fingertip-stretch from the steering wheel. Visibility in all directions is excellent, once you’re accustomed to the knee-high vantage point.
In a similar vein, the Artura isn’t intimidating to drive once you’ve got the hang of things. Thumb the starter button and with the drivetrain in Comfort mode it moves silently off in pure electric mode, sparing your neighbours’ ears as you leave home for your early-morning breakfast drive or golf game, before the combustion engine comes to life once you hit the open road and speeds rise.
Conversely if you want to wake everyone up as you meander through the neighbourhood, switch to Sport or Track mode and the engine will fire up once you start up.
Whatever mode you’re in, the thrust is simply ferocious when you floor it, to the extent that on our roads it’s impossible to use full throttle for more than 5 seconds or so, for fear of either running out of space or appearing in a starring role in someone’s online clip. The E-motor’s torque-fill masks whatever turbo-lag there may be so that response is instantaneous whatever the gear, whatever the revs.
The engine’s voice, gruff and guttural at lower revs, turns into a hard-edged wail as revs rise towards its 8200rpm redline. If you’ve chosen to handle gearchanges yourself via the steering paddles, at full chat you’ll barely have time to grab a gear before the next one is due.
While quite a handful of other cars, including some EVs, now dip well below the 4-second century sprint mark, the savagery of the Artura’s acceleration and the intense, manic manner of its delivery is of a wholly different order from that of even the mightiest supersaloon or EV.
PILOTING THRILLS
And the Artura’s steering is the loveliest thing. McLaren stands alone among its rivals in eschewing electrically-assisted helms in favour of good old hydraulic power steering, and at the first swivel of the wheel on a challenging road, you instantly see – or rather, feel – why.
The way that steering weight is just-right and remains consistently so around the bend, the constant stream of subtle feedback, the quiet but clear messages being relayed to your palms and fingertips about the condition of the road surface underfoot, the state of interplay between tyres and tarmac and the amount of grip in hand, all combine to immerse you in the experience of driving, and not merely conducting, this phenomenal supercar.
The chassis, of course, is a match for whatever you could possibly throw at it. I won’t pretend to have properly explored the Artura’s limits within our local confines – you need an empty racetrack as well as melon-sized gonads for that – but through whatever challenging series of corners I could find in the remote ends of our island, the Artura’s responses were pin-sharp, the car darting unhesitatingly into bends and thundering through at ridiculous speeds without even trying.
It is all immensely thrilling, but try as you might, you are merely tickling the surface of the car’s abilities.
The carbon-ceramic brakes prove indomitable too – the wide brake pedal is perfectly placed for both right- or left-foot braking, and while initially feeling a touch heavy and unresponsive at low speeds, you soon realise the relatively heftier action allows for more precise brake modulation, especially under heavy braking from high speeds.
Leave the chassis mode in Comfort and the ride is taut but well-judged, rounding off ruts and bumps with nonchalant ease yet maintaining iron-fisted control over roll, pitch or any other stray body movements.
No matter what the road or how hard you attack it, it copes easily, leaving Sport mode, with its stiffened damping, almost irrelevant in normal use. The most extreme Track mode is self-explanatory – save it for the days when you’re piloting the car with a helmet on.
It boggles the mind that the Artura is but the “junior” model in McLaren’s range – it’s hard to fathom how there is any headroom left for the marque’s other offerings to be any more extreme or thrilling than this. Because so good is the Artura, in every way, that it truly is all the supercar you will ever need.
McLaren Artura 3.0 (A)
ENGINE 2993cc, 24-valves, V6, twin-turbocharged, plug-in hybrid
E-MOTOR Axial flux motor, 7.4kW/h Li-ion battery pack
MAX POWER 671bhp at 7500rpm
MAX TORQUE 720Nm at 2250rpm
POWER TO WEIGHT 447.9bhp per tonne
GEARBOX 8-speed dual-clutch with manual select
0-100KM/H 3 seconds
TOP SPEED 330km/h
CONSUMPTION 21.8km/L (combined)
PRICE EXCL. COE From $1,300,000
AGENT McLaren Singapore
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