McLaren went about the business of selling its first road cars as you might expect a Grand Prix team would; making them aerodynamically optimal at the expense of good looks and giving them drab, turn-off names derived from complex internal processes used to calibrate a vehicle’s performance. Then finally, because those processes said the cars were the best (fastest), believing they must be the best. There is after all only one objective measure in racing; your car is the fastest or it isn’t.  So in 2011 we had the MP4-12C, which became the 12C that became the 650s, which has become the 675LT in no time at all. More racing practice; it’s entirely appropriate to evolve a racing car as fast as you can. Doing the same with a road car however can only confuse, alienate and roundly irk early adopters, which in the case of the original MP4-12C would surely have been the most hard-core of McLaren fan-boys.  And then there was the P1. A towering achievement, a truly astonishing motor car until you compare it with its forebear, the McLaren F1. Created by an entirely different McLaren affiliate over 20 years ago, the F1 remains altogether more compelling. Regardless, McLaren will show you how the P1 has more downforce and more performance than an F1. So although bigger, less efficient and less smart it must be better. Although I’m not even sure McLaren believes that one.  So the team/car company share a cold heart you might believe, one that ruthlessly searches for ways to make their cars “optimal” (F1 teams love that word), choosing not to also engage buyers’ left brain, and also oddly blind to the fact that this is exactly what Ferrari has done for some time now, to great success. It’s on-brand alright – McLaren as a corporation doesn’t half take things seriously – but it makes their cars hard to love, for me anyhow. Plenty have found homes in a short space of time.  The new McLaren 570S seems to come from a different place. There’s the simple name – 570 being the car’s approximate grunt measured in PS (that’s 564bhp for those reading in imperial), “S” for “Sports Series”. There’s the fact it’s oh-my-so-sorry-am-I-staring pretty. And there’s the fact that its £145,000. Yep, the last new car McLaren launched was way north of £1million, this one is around one-tenth of that price (and they are really not so different).  Audi decided to drop V8-engined versions when it launched its second generation R8 last month, in favour of the more expensive V10s. Ooops. And sure, Porsche will sell you a 911 Turbo S for slightly less money. But the 911 looks like a 911 and the Audi is….an Audi. There really is nothing out there like the 570s. The 12C/650/675 and the P1 had competition, the way a racing team likes it. The 570S has none. So it’s not only the prettiest McLaren, it’s also the smartest.  Although the issues with the 12C/650 etc. suggested a strategy written in pencil, this was always the plan. All McLarens – from gazillion-dollar P1 GTRs to pocket-money 570s – share the same major components. McLaren says the twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8 in the 570S has 30 per cent new pieces, and it has rechristened the familiar carbon-fibre structure at the core of the car “Monocell II” but only, one suspects, to protect the egos (and garage portfolios) of owners of the more expensive cars.  But don’t think the 570S is in any way McLaren’s “diffusion” product. It will still do over 200mph and will still reach 60mph in just over three seconds. And in danger of repeating myself, it is £145,000.  As much as they might liked to have considered them so (because they measured them to be better) McLaren’s first two products were hardly disruptive. The 570S surely is. Taking some of the complexity out of the chassis and some of the carbon fibre out the body (the 570S is part-aluminium) has, one assumes, allowed McLaren to keep its margin healthy while slashing the price. But it clearly also benefits from that shared structure and shared engine, which can now be produced in numbers approaching 3,000 cars a year.  On paper at least it’s a killer product, justifying McLaren billing its arrival a “black swan moment”. It’s taken a while and the company has, to these eyes at least, taken a peculiar route to get there. However, this beautiful, fast, clever, modern and inexpensive car carrying the name of what’s still the second most successful Grand Prix team of all time is set to make waves. Maybe for once having no obvious rival to “beat” and no objective measure to fall back on, only its own talents and instincts, has been the making of the car company. For it looks to have truly come of age with this car.
204mph and 564bhp at a price of £145k? Our expert debates whether the new McLaren has already won the New York Auto Show