McLaren: A Genuine Grand Tourer

Does McLaren’s new entry-level supercar, the 570GT, also cut it as a genuine grand tourer? Jon Wall heads to a volcano in the Atlantic to find out.

The McLaren team may be celebrating 50 years in Formula 1, but its road-car offshoot has a much briefer history. Founded in 2010, McLaren Automotive launched its first vehicle just 12 months later. Yet for an enterprise that’s only six-years-old, it boasts an impressive list of achievements.

The British car manufacturer’s debut effort — the sleek MP4-12C coupe, whose nomenclature was the only unwieldy thing about it — instantly established itself as a credible alternative to the Ferrari 458, then widely regarded as the gold standard of supercars. As an opening gambit, it was outstanding, but McLaren had also set itself the ambitious target of introducing a new car every year, an objective it has now comfortably exceeded, while as an even more convincing measure of success, the company has been profitable since 2013.

The McLaren line-up currently comprises nine models and variants, which are grouped into three tiers of attainability, starting with the Sports Series and ending with the Ultimate Series of hybrid hypercars. While all models share similar fundamentals and architecture — a lightweight carbon fibre-composite monocell chassis, a turbocharged 3.8-litre V8 motor, a mid-engine layout and dihedral “scissor” doors — they range upwards from the 540C coupe, positioned as a direct competitor to the Porsche 911 Turbo and Audi R8, to the fabulous, limited-edition and already-soldout P1, whose US$1.35 million price tag is only marginally lower than that demanded for Maranello’s equally stratospheric LaFerrari.

Introduced earlier this year, McLaren’s new 570GT coupe brings the entry-level Sports Series to three models. As its name suggests, it uses an identical power unit to the 570S coupe, with 562bhp and 600Nm, but the GT has been subtly redesigned, reengineered and otherwise reworked to engender the more luxurious and relaxed demeanour of a genuine grand tourer.