A brief ride on the wild side with the McLaren 650S Coupe

Okay, I must say I have gone out on a bit of a professional limb here, because I haven’t yet put the McLaren 650S against the clock at Gerotek. The reason for this is that the test car I went to collect was brand new and still being run in and had not had its launch control function activated yet.

McLaren claim that the coupe accelerates to 100km/h from rest in just 3.0 seconds, and can reach 200km/h in just 8.4 seconds. The standing quarter mile takes 10.5 seconds, and top speed is 333km/h. But going to Gerotek to break all my production car records was not on the cards, as to be the best you need to be at your best and without launch control you are not going to wipe the floor with the competition.

This did not stop me, though, from having a brief and rather brisk ride in the car. I can say brisk because the 3.8 litre V8 twin turbo pumps out a proper 478kW to go with a ride that is very track orientated when you want it. But flick a switch and everything calms down and gets a bit softer and more traffic friendly. And this for me is the biggest plus to the 650S. You can have a ballistic missile when you want and the next moment you can tootle through the traffic.