Hot take of mine: if a car isn’t good on the street, it isn’t good.
Yes, of course, there are many good cars that are designed for track conquest. Dodge Demons devour drag strips, Taycan Turbo GTs rip up road courses; hell, the list of lust-worthy Ferraris designed specifically for turning a track lap into an endorphin hit likable to heroin is long enough to fill a book. And if you want to be pedantic, just about every car these days is capable of top speeds and lateral grip that’s hard to (legally, at least) approach on a public road.
But at the end of the day, cars are meant for driving from A to B, not from A around in a short loop back to A again. Even track-ready specials are, by and large, will spend the majority of their time on the public roads. If a car is street-legal, it’s ultimately defined by how it performs on the street. A great driver’s car should be able to express its true self and leave the driver fulfilled just as well on a road as elsewhere.
Yes, I can also vouch for how well it performs on a closed course; the thoughtful folks at McLaren made sure to offer us a crack at the private track tucked inside Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s oval to give a sense of the car’s limits. But it was during a few hours driving the 750S up and down one of my favorite stretches of pavement on the planet — Nevada State Route 167 — that I learned just how delightful and engrossing this latest member of the Macca family is.
167, for the record, is a serpentine 53-mile stretch of billiard-table-smooth highway that runs through the Lake Mead Recreation Area from the outskirts of Vegas to the Valley of Fire State Park. Along it, you’ll find no gas stations, no towns and — on account of the national park fee needed for entry — almost no through traffic. What you will find: a delicious smorgasbord of tight turns, long sweepers and straightaways long enough to land an SR-71, all blessed with excellent sightlines and backdrops straight out of a Calvin and Hobbes Spaceman Spiff adventure.
Southern Nevada has some pretty spectacular sights … and the mountains ain’t bad, either.Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
It’s also a surprisingly good car for a long drive. While you’re not likely to confuse it with a proper gran turismo (and besides, McLaren already has a car for that), it’s roomy enough for two adults of the taller persuasion, has a surprisingly capacious frunk — and thanks to some of the changes made for the 2024 model year, it’s much easier to use from a driver’s standpoint.
The 750S is largely a usability-focused update to the 720S
Yes, McLaren squeezed a little more power out of the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 packed between driver’s cell and rear axle and gave the car a slightly shorter drive ratio, but let’s face it: an extra 30 ponies doesn’t make much of an appreciable difference when you’re already starting with more than 700 horsepower at tap.
Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
Like the 720S, the 750S’s acceleration is nothing short of stupendous. Stupendous off the line, obviously, but increasingly stupendous as the speed builds. There’s a subtle but distinct extra shove as the turbos reach full boost in the engine’s midrange, but it’s easy to miss if you’re like me and spending most of your mental energy keeping tabs on the road ahead flies towards you with increasing aggression. Launch control — now much easier to implement — forces the wheels to constantly walk the line between grip and slip as the traction control meters out just enough power to keep from slipping. If the 750S isn’t quick enough for you, it might be time to dial back on uppers and start adding some downers to your life.
The way it handles turns remains a highlight as well, of course. McLaren says it focused on enhancing both agility and feedback versus the 720S; without driving them back-to-back (and not having had many complaints about the pre-facelift car’s agility and feedback), I’ll take their word for that, but I can certainly vouch for the fact that the 750S handles with the precision and deftness you’d expect from a world-class supercar.
As with its predecessor, it boasts adaptive dampers and hydraulically linked pistons in lieu of a traditional sway bar, and the combination provides an excellent balance between remarkable handling and a pleasant ride (at least, for a mid-engined speed machine). Or at least, it can if you choose. The ride grows increasingly stiff as you cycle from Comfort up to Sport and then Track; indeed, I found the latter almost unnecessarily stiff even on the actual track, making the car feel too tightly wired and causing it to bounce around.
McLaren, to its credit, still refuses to implement electric power steering, preferring the greater engagement and connection of a hydraulically-assisted rack even at the noticeable cost to efficiency. The 750S’s unit is stunningly precise, with a deftness and immediacy that’s rare in the automotive world these days. It’s also surprisingly weighty, to the point where it can almost feel unassisted. My hands were aching a little after a couple hours of driving. (Then again, some of that might have been from me squeezing the wheel extra-tight on account of the stress of a near-empty gas tank.)
Inside, the big news is the availability of Apple CarPlay (which looks more than ever like an iPhone thanks to the vertical screen) and the movement of the drive controls to the instrument panel binnacle.Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
Fiddling with the modes for the powertrain and handling systems now involves a pair of fat toggle pods mounted behind the 10 and 2 positions of the steering wheel, which is a significant improvement over the former solution of confusing buttons and switches on the center console. There’s also a new custom mode option that lets you summon your favorite settings at the touch of a button next to the infotainment system. In case you’re wondering what that pictogram is on it, it’s a kiwi — the bird, not the fruit — in homage to New Zealander Bruce McLaren, who was known as the “Speedy Kiwi” during his racing days.
Speaking of that infotainment system, it now offers Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Thanks to the vertical design of the display, it manages to make CarPlay look more like a traditional iPhone screen than most implementations, and it works just as well here as anywhere else — which is to say, better than McLaren’s own system (and, to be fair, most automakers’ infotainment arrangements.)
The rest of the native setup is still a bit fiddly, with somewhat obtuse controls for the native functions, so I’d say you’re best off sticking with your smartphone mirroring option of choice as much as possible.
The 750S’s design is slightly improved, for the better
I’ll fully admit, when I first laid eyes on the 750S, I thought I was still looking at a 720S. From the front, the changes are hard to spot. The lower part of the front fascia is now entirely body-colored, axing the black chin of the previous model; the air ducts in front of the wheels are also body colored instead of black. In addition, new air vents have been added above the wheel arches. Otherwise, though, the two are basically identical. (Good luck telling the difference between the two if both are painted glossy black.)
Out back, though, the differences are a bit more clear. There’s a new rear spoiler that takes after the one on the 765LT, as does the high-mounted central exhaust port. (The exhaust note has also been tweaked to give it more character, although it’s still rather industrial compared to the opera of, say, a Ferrari V8.) There are fewer gills and more circular vents for heat dispersal, and the painted body work flows a little lower at the corners for a more conventional look. It still looks like a spaceship, just one made on Earth instead of Rigel IX.
The 2024 McLaren 750S Spider
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Then again, why mess with success? While I’ll fully admit to being skeptical of the car’s design when it launched seven years ago — I found its eye-socket headlamps off-putting in pictures — it’s since won me over. The lack of air scoops on the sides gives the Macca a surprising grace you don’t expect from a mid-engined car, exaggerating the length and making it seem more evenly balanced. With the Corvette Stingray seemingly quadrupling the number of “conventional” mid-engined sports cars on the road these days, the 750S’s design still manages to stand out.
My time was spent with a 750S Spider, and as with the 720S, it seems like the pick of the litter. Weight gain is minimal — 3,170 pounds to the 750S Coupe’s 3,062 — with no appreciable difference in structural rigidity thanks to the frighteningly strong carbon fiber chassis. And while coupe and roadster look extremely similar with the roof up, only the latter gives you the ability to let the sun shine in — or, for a delightful breeze, drop the rear window independently of the top.
All told, the 750S builds on the good parts of the 720S design and minimizes the bad ones. If that’s not the hallmark of a good mid-life cycle refresh for a product, I don’t know what is.
Red rocks, blue car.Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
Like many a supercar, the 750S’s design lends itself well to all sorts of wild, exuberant colors. And, as it should nicely work out, McLaren offers a palette of some of the wildest, most exuberant colors found in the automotive world, from Kermit-the-Frog greens to phosphorescent oranges to the rich, deep purple-blue hue found on my test car, which left me walking backwards to gaze at it every time I stepped away. (Of course, most will cost you; the Tanzanite Blue of my tester adds $5,900 to the tab, for example.)
Pro tip, however: be sure you like the way your shade of choice pairs with those deep-set headlights on the configurator before you place your order. I can only imagine the annoyance you’d feel at spending north of $350,000 on a dream car only to find it ugly when you see it for the first time.
The biggest foe of the 750S is found across the showroom floor
Full disclosure: I suffered from the occasional bout of deja vu during my hours ripping around Nevada in the 750S … because roughly 14 months earlier, I’d driven almost exactly the same route in a very similar-looking McLaren Artura, the company’s plug-in hybrid V6 base model.
In case you didn’t believe me, here’s the Artura I drove in December 2022.Will Sabel Courtney
Rerunning the route in a very similar car offered an obvious chance for comparison. The 750S is evolution to the Artura’s revolution, sticking with tried-and-true Macca choices like eight cylinders of pure gasoline power, brake-based torque vectoring and an alphanumeric name. It’s the proper successor to a decade’s worth of McLarens that have redefined the supercar as much as the Acura NSX did in the early 1990s.
But should you wind up looking for objective truths during your McLaren purchase process, odds are good you’ll wind up being confronted with a simple one: the Artura is a better buy.
My preferred way to drive: roof up, side and rear windows down.Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
As Car and Driver foundin their testing, the Artura ran neck-and-neck with the 720S in most performance testing, with differences coming down to tenths of seconds and hundredths of g-force. The two cars are almost exactly the same size — length, width and height vary by fractions of an inch. Even passenger volume is almost identical. The 750S improves on the 720S around the edges, but I don’t imagine the new car’s minor performance tweaks will put much daylight between it and its predecessor — or, by extension, the Artura. And at a base price of $331K, it’s a good $75,000 more than Artie.
Still, given McLaren’s small production numbers, odds are good the company won’t have any trouble moving copies of both models. The 750S still holds the high cards in terms of power, and its twin-turbo V8 packs a character that the Artura’s setup can’t match. Its design remains unique in the space, avoiding the gulping flank-mounted air intakes that have long characterized super-powerful mid-engined cars. And while PHEV supercars may be the future … it’s pure gasoline power that made them legends.
McLaren 750S
The 750S is a mid-life refresh of the 720S supercar introduced in 2017. It’s a member of what McLaren calls its “Super Series” of supercars, and comes in Coupe and Spider versions.
Photo by Will Sabel Courtney
