Speed Demon

THE SPEEDTAIL’S DESIGN IS AS OTHERWORLDLY AS ITS PERFORMANCE. THIS IS McLAREN’S 772KW, 403KM/H MODERN TAKE ON THE ORIGINAL F1.

- Ben Miller

FIRST MAN, the film adaptation of James Hansen’s book First Man: The life of Neil A. Armstrong, is a ferocious emotional roller coaster, one that artfully water boards you with the full spectrum, from grief and sadness through panic and hope to wide-eyed awe. The panic’s there most obviously in the moments of lost control, when pioneering spacecraft tumble out of control in the pitiless vacuum of space.

However, for me it also crept in during quieter moments. Like when the astronauts, in full kit and carrying their little white life-support suitcases, walk the length of the gantry to board through Saturn V’s access hatch: an invitation to climb into a cramped and almost windowless cockpit at the top of a 110-metre-high pile of fuel and ’60s wiring. Brave doesn’t begin to cover it.

The new Speed tail, McLaren’s first hybrid since the P1/P1 GTR, feels a little like a four wheeled Saturn V. It’s dazzlingly ambitious, pragmatically evolutionary in a couple of technical respects, but innovative in many more, and brave. Both are shaped to battle the treacly drag of our atmosphere, both are powerful beyond comprehension, and both are designed to transport human beings at terrific speed, inevitably shifting their crews’ perspective on the universe a little as they go.

But there are one or two key differences. Next to Saturn V the Speed tail looks almost affordable at $3.16m (106 will be built, just as 106 examples of the similarly three-seat F1 were also produced). The Speed tail also promises to be a good deal more comfortable than the NASA rocket.