The McLaren Artura: A First Drive Review

As I stepped out of my car and onto the track, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. My driving instructor, Bradley, was kind enough to humor me as I bombarded him with questions about the vehicle. He patiently answered each query, despite being clearly not in his job description.

From a philosophical perspective, I really appreciate what McLaren is trying to accomplish. They're taking an all-new architecture that has inherent compromises from an enthusiast's standpoint. Batteries less cylinders hybridization, but they've made the best of it. They definitely have not engineered out the driver and stripped away that emotional driving connection. Instead, they've managed to create a car that still feels connected to its driver. And in this aspect, they're one of the few brands today that still uses hydraulic steering – a godsend.

Hydraulic steering is something I've grown fond of, and it's music to my ears. You feel something through the steering wheel because there's no brake by wire. You feel something through the brake pedals. It's properly balanced, and the double wishbone suspension and chassis communicate with you. Because it has an e-diff, it's more natural in the rear to rotate – albeit there's a very small window of slope angle to actually use. I want to be clear that this is a first drive program, which means I spent about 10 minutes with it on track and four hours on the street. So, I don't know everything there is to know about the dynamics of this vehicle.

On the street, this is a very refined driving experience if you're going to use this as your weekend daily-ish driven supercar, it accomplishes that in spades. The carbon tub – which is rare even at this class of vehicle – does a good job isolating a lot of the road imperfections. It's a fairly quiet car, and you have tremendous visibility at the front. In fact, the last time I've been in a sports car that has this much visibility was a first-gen NSX.

The engine is a highlight of the Artura. Despite having less cylinders and being a hybrid, it's incredibly smooth and has a nice resonance to it. There's no fake engine noise – which is a godsend. The power delivery is surprisingly linear. The electric motor does a good job filling in the low RPM gap, then the twin-turbo V6 takes over in the higher RPMs. And it's no surprise that this car is unbelievably quick at over 670 horsepower and 530ish foot pounds of torque.

The 8-speed dual-clutch transmission – at least on the street – is nearly faultless. On the track, it's fairly responsive. The last thing I want to bring up is this brand as a whole. McLaren makes very expensive cars. This car is no exception, even though it's the new entry-level sport series car, it starts at little over a quarter million dollars, and the one as tested is in like $250,000. Despite that, the brand is non-pretentious. They prioritize engineering and their enthusiasm for motorsports is genuine.

That's something I really appreciate about this brand. They really do care. And when you step into this car, it shows. The Artura is a beautifully crafted machine that feels like a dream to drive. It's not perfect – far from it – but it's a start. A bold move by McLaren to create a supercar that's both high-tech and high-connection. And I'm excited to see where they'll go from here.

The handling of the Artura is smooth, thanks to its hydraulic steering system. As Bradley noted, having a clutch-based rear diff makes this feel more organic than some other supercars. It's not perfect, but it's close. The car does have a drift mode, which is a nice touch for those who enjoy drifting.

When it comes to comparison to other supercars, the Artura stands out from the crowd. Its steering, in particular, sets it apart. Compared to Ferraris and Lamborghinis, which often lack hydraulic steering, the Artura's system is smooth and intuitive. It's not too tight or too loose – just right.

I have to say, I was impressed by how well the Artura handled on both the track and the street. The carbon tub really makes a difference, isolating road imperfections and reducing noise. And the visibility at the front is incredible, thanks to the unique design of the windshield and rear window.

The engine is another highlight of the Artura. Despite being less powerful than some other supercars, it feels incredibly smooth and responsive. The power delivery is linear, with the electric motor filling in the low RPM gap and then the twin-turbo V6 taking over in higher RPMs. And at 670 horsepower and 530 foot pounds of torque, this car is quick – really quick.

The Artura's acceleration is stunning. It goes from 0-60mph in under 4 seconds and has plenty of top-end speed to boot. The sound of the engine is music to my ears – a smooth, linear growl that builds in power as you accelerate.

Overall, I'm impressed by the McLaren Artura. It's not perfect, but it's a bold move by the brand to create a supercar that's both high-tech and high-connection. And with its unique design, powerful engine, and smooth handling, it's definitely worth a look for anyone in the market for a new supercar.

As I climbed out of the car after our first drive, Bradley turned to me and said, "You know, this is going to be a great car." I couldn't agree more. The McLaren Artura is an exciting addition to the world of sports cars – one that's sure to turn heads and leave a lasting impression.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign I'm here in Las Vegas for the North American launch of the McLaren Arturo and sadly Mark will not be joining us for this video as he's currently attending smoked meat con 2022. but with that McLaren was kind enough to partner us up with Jeff the chief engineer of the McLaren Arturo and someone who's worked on nearly every McLaren since the McLaren SLR let me briefly give you an exterior interior and Technical overview of the McLaren Arturo from an exterior perspective this is typical McLaren while it is all new and they have definitely changed their manufacturing process to improve QC and potentially simplify some of the manufacturing it is still a very good looking car and thankfully it still has the billionaire doors that go up and down like You're Expecting when you look at the interior of this vehicle again it's traditional McLaren it looks familiar but it is all new you have a very low Dash you have good visibility you have very comfortable seats these are the Comfort Seats there so have performance seats you have the Bowers and Wilkin audio system which is tremendous for a dedicated sports car Supercar while it does not match something like the BMW IX 4A sports car it's very impressive and the subwoofer is actually built into the carbon tub of this car to give you the tightest and punchiest baits possible the Interior Electronics have all been updated they've tried to make it a little bit more ergonomic so your drive mode controls right behind the steering wheel you have the latest version of McLaren's infotainment which has wired Apple carplay wireless apple carplay and thankfully due to the all-new ethernet electrical architecture of this vehicle you can expect OTAs in the future with this latest version of their software as well you also have all the Adas systems and all the other things that probably can keep you safe in your quarter million dollars supercar so when it comes to a technical overview of this vehicle let's start with the carbon tub this is on McLaren's latest architecture which is built to be scaled out in the future and it has designed and manufactured a new carbon tub obviously to include electrification this carbon tub is now built by McLaren in-house as well and then shipped to their assembly plant where these cars are essentially handmade race-based style where this thing is essentially wheeled Station to Station the tub is stronger it is easier to assemble it as less sub-assemblies and the overall weight of this vehicle is 3 300 pounds as a curb weight the front suspension is still double Wishbone it still has hydraulic steering which is very rare in a modern Supercar or sports car and it has normal brakes despite being a hybrid does not have brake by wire the brakes are carbon Ceramics as standard the rear suspension architecture is new it is a multi-link it now deals better with Towing and till out under braking it's more rigid when it comes to the toe arms the joy of going from a multi-link from a double Wishbone setup prior and the rear of this car has the battery pack as well so between the carbon tub and the drivetrain sits the battery pack for this vehicle when it comes to the drivetrain itself it is a all-new engine codenade m630 it is a V6 a 120 degree V6 it is three liters it is Twin Turbo the turbos are by borgworm and they sit between the V so it's a hot V setup between the V6 and the Dual clutch it's a electric motor the electric motor is fed by a 7.4 kilowatt hour battery or somewhere around there again that is right behind you in the carbon tub the combined system output is like 670-ish horsepower and then the mid 500s of torque so this is a phenomenally fast vehicle and the electric motor essentially acts as a Power Fill for the V6 it kicks in at lower RPM it is good for essentially 40 miles of on track eating which is impressive so you don't lose power for 40 miles on track and it is constantly charging the battery which is a great thing the Dual clutch is an 8-speed designed by McLaren much like the engine itself the V6 is the same designed by McLaren manufactured by Ricardo it has eight forward physical gears it is shorter than the Dual clutch it replaces despite it having more gears in the seven speed that predates it however the reverse gear is handled by the electric motor but I think with all of that said it's time to speak to Jeff the chief engineer so we can go into greater detail and walk us through the philosophy of the McLaren Arturo so my name is Jeff gross and I'm the chief engineer for the McLaren Arturo and I started at McLaren 16 years ago as a head of vehicle development so I had the pleasure of working through the original mp412c development and the P1 leading the team that did all the Prototype test and development and all the way through to certification and then I moved into being a chief engineer for the sports Series so the range of cars started with the 570 and went through uh all the way to the 600 LT and uh and moving on on from that to the Altura so Jeff thank you for humoring me and getting on camera I really do appreciate it I've spent a decent amount of time in this car basically 14 Laps on track and half a day in this thing so I have a pretty good taste of what it's like development wise this is an all-new vehicle for you well we knew in developing our first series hybrid car that we needed to start right from scratch so it needed to be a whole new vehicle really important because in order to avoid creating a heavy hybrid we really need to go back to every single component on the car engineering out the weight so that we keep you know a true Supercar type performance but introducing the excitement of an electrified Powertrain this for a lot of enthusiasts and we talked a little bit about this off camera sort of a counter-intuitive product right you're adding hybridization decrease the number of sellers obviously it makes a hell of a lot more power than it used to but how did you manage to still make this feel like a more traditional vehicle obviously there's no brake by wire and you still have hydraulic steering how did you manage to make this feel more organic so I think you know from the um from the powertrain performance and clearly we want that instantaneous throttle response um which actually the electric motor is a perfect um partner to this to this new um this new V6 engine so two of them together creating a really instantaneous response which gives you a really good driver engagement with the electrified power of the electric motor between the gearbox and the actual V6 itself what what is it actually doing can you walk me through what it's doing to the uh Power delivery and where it steps in and where it doesn't sure so um in the in the hybrid mode when both of both the modes are working then we're constantly deciding you know where the torque's going to come from from these those two engines so when you when you tip into the throttle you're going to get a very quick instantaneous response from the electric motor while a turbo spools up electric motor will bleed out a little bit as the turbo comes in so that you end up with a really nice fast but linear response so it feels very natural you know almost like a naturally aspirated car you're not going to get a sudden wave of torque that is is uh is too disruptive so um you know rethinking about how we shape the delivery of that talk for the best kind of performance so it doesn't feel like a very Twitchy car initially sure how one of the questions a lot of people are going to have I guess is how do you manage to keep the power consistent over a long period of time because thermal management with batteries electric motors and obviously two enormous turbos back there is complex to say the least yeah and certainly for for any kind of electrified powertrain you're going to trade off uh what what might be your maximum possible power with what you might deliver consistently and for us we look at a track session and um we typically use the NATO handling track as one of our benchmarks but there are other tracks that we use and uh looking for some consistent performance over a track session so you know you might get a bit of degradation over over a few laps with tires and you you know you might accept a little bit you know but generally you want a really consistent performance so it's not just a a one lap Wonder um that's been really important to us I heard off camera that it was like 40 miles approximately of flat out range theoretically I mean of course it totally depends on the nature of the circuit or the the environment about how it how it works that's the principle behind it you know more than a 20-minute session absolutely yeah well you know you can usually fuel in 20 minutes in some cars as well so uh so yeah it depends on this depends on the circuit you know the cooling for the electric motor is it's separate from the internal combustion engine like can you walk me through the the cooling circuits associated with this vehicle so um because we we have a you know a good history now of working with turbocharged engines we're always thinking about managing the overall heat rejection from the car at a high temperature so we have a big big offset to Ambience so we can get a lot of heat rejection coupled with kneading for the charge cooling to Target a really super low uh temperature of the charge air into the engine so we've always been used to running two parallel circuits one at very low temperature and of course what we find is a lot of those HV elements want to piggyback off that low temperature circuit so we're just using that circuit we're already using for charge Cooling and we're using it for a number of the elements in the HV circuit apart from the battery yeah and the battery shares also shares its cooling but it shares its cooling with the occupant because we use the refrigerant circuit again one compressor one condenser two distributed circuits one for the one for the driver and one for his battery when it comes to the suspension setup your twin tube adaptive dampers pretty wide range of stiffness settings I heard there's almost like a 30 percent difference in stiffness between comfort and track correct yeah so we like to um separate the the the the chassis mounts of the the handling modes from the powertrain so you can choose whether you want to have a comfortable uh dampage setting but an aggressive um track um powertrain performance um but yeah there's a big range between Comfort Sport and track then in uh in the handling modes and uh are they about 15 10 percent yeah but about that you know and this obviously but there's there's um all sorts of different algorithms going on about about what you want to do in terms of speed dependencies and all other all other things going on and um and yeah we have a robust front and rear you know um reasonably traditional although we've gone for a variable wall thickness roll bar on the front for the first time on one of our cars which again saves uh just over a kilo weight actually because you know we've got a lot of roll stiffness you know so it's quite a big component and uh so that was interesting and um you have an Edith now you have a physical set of clutches back there as a native as well yeah yeah yeah yeah how is that change change the Dynamics of the vehicle and what's sort of your goal limit handling for a vehicle like this what are you looking for well I think um what we're trying to do is um we want the best possible driver engagement so um that doesn't necessarily you know sometimes it means you want to drift right you know so it's not all about lap time it's great to go for lap time but also want people to be able to drift and do all the things they want to do to enjoy the car and we think the CDF application is going to really help them do that hydraulic steering you guys are sort of alone on the island with basically Lotus when it comes to implementing hydraulic steering in a sports car walk me through why you've stuck with it and what advantages that's given you so of course we've got an open mind into you know what sort of Technologies we're going to use but for us we feel that the hydraulically assisted steering is still the way to go you know it's still the best for the the the best response and feedback and feel and confidence building for the driver and that couple with the the way we execute the braking system you know so we're not break by wire we're not steer by wire you're getting that real engagement with the um with the response of the vehicle we think it's really important customers and and definitely we think our customers really value it thank you so I'm in Las Vegas heading on track with a gentleman who spent far more time out here than I will ever in my entire life and more time in the 570s Junior 200 yourself to the boys and girls at home my name is Bradley simoncelli I'm an instructor here at dream racing about to enter track here so that's it yeah perfect so you have been here to drive the five something yes I know you've not spent a lot of time in this car as it's wave one yeah how did that car behave at the limit you've spent an unbelievable amount of time in that vehicle what was it like so that car is very stable in the corners it does like to understeer a lot that's where this one is a lot different into where if you turn in hard it does oversteer on Entry that's where the 570s does not do that so that's a big difference in these two cars uh Power bandwise obviously this is far more powerful and you definitely notice it do you feel that it's uh fairly near its delivery the little time you spend in this car yeah it does have that turbo kick like all turbo cars do but there is no lag which I really like so it's very linear so when the brakes here the bridge the brick not break by wires you may or may not be aware and they feel pretty damn good oh yeah those carbon ceramics the awesome breaks what do you look for in a car when you're driving it I guess stability mid Corner most of the time which presents itself as mild understeer correct yes I know a lot of drivers who do like the snap VR steer but as I found out earlier off camera like a dumbass this card will carry a tremendous amount of slip angle but if you're too slow like I was you'll yourself going the wrong way rather quickly was that pretty similar with the 570 so the 570 doesn't really kick out like that I know the 720 here still foreign because it's not a clutch based through death yeah so the 570s as I said you know doesn't really slide that much um I do have time in the 720s that car does like to kick out kind of like this car and it does have a drift mode just like this car yep do you think having a clutch-based rear diff makes this feel a little bit more organic yes I do the next question thank you how do you think the steering in this car compares to some of the other supercars because it is hydraulic compared to which car like some of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis you get that don't have hydraulic steering they're more traditional it's very smooth compared to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini Lamborghini is a very tight steering and Ferrari is very loose in my opinion I think it's very kind of in the middle is very smooth you can feel a lot of the road which I like so it's exactly what you're looking for well I know this isn't your day job by any means but I too appreciate you being a good sport about all this and of course dealing with an like me trying to learn to drive the track in a car at the same time so I guess with that we'll head into the final thoughts sir thank you for your time you're very welcome final thoughts on the McLaren artura and I wanted to say this first huge thanks to Jeff the chief engineer and the entire PR team at McLaren I also wanted to thank Bradley the driving instructor who was assigned to me being on camera is definitely not in his job description but he was kind enough to humor Us and humor me while I asked him all those annoying questions in car so what do I think about the vehicle well from a philosophical perspective I really appreciate what McLaren is trying to accomplish they're taking an all new architecture that has inherent compromises from an Enthusiast perspective batteries less cylinders hybridization but they have made the best of it they definitely have not engineered out the driver and Stripped Away that emotional driving connection they have not done what Acura did with the NSX you actually feel something when you drive this car and all of its inputs are fairly natural which is not something you can say in modern sports cars other than maybe Lotus it's one of the few Brands today that still uses hydraulic steering which is a godsend you feel something through the steering wheel because there's no brake by wire you feel something through the brake pedals it's properly balanced the double Wishbone suspension and the chassis communicates with you and because it has an e-diff it's more natural in the rear to rotate albeit there's a very very small window of slope angle to actually use and I want to be clear this is a first drive program which means I spent about 10 minutes with it on track and four hours on the street so I don't know everything there is to know about the Dynamics of this vehicle to be entirely honest but what I did experience is on Street this is a very refined Driving Experience if you're going to use this as your weekend daily ish driven Supercar it accomplishes that in Spades the carbon tub which again is rare even at this class of vehicle does a good job isolating a lot of the road imperfections it's a fairly quiet car you have tremendous visibility at the front the last time I've been in a sports car that has this much visibility is a first gen NSX and the engine despite having less cylinders and being a hybrid is incredibly smooth and has a nice resonance to it there's no fake engine noise which is a godsend the power delivery is surprisingly linear the electric motor does a good job filling in the low RPM Gap then the twin turbo V6 takes over in the higher RPMs and it is no surprise unbelievably quick at over 670 horsepower and 530ish foot pounds of torque this is one of the fastest rear-wheel drive cars I have ever driven the 8-speed dual clutch at least on the street is nearly faultless and on the track it's fairly responsive the last thing I want to bring up is this brand as a whole McLaren makes very expensive cars this car is no exception even though it's the new entry level sport series car it starts at little over a quarter million dollars and the one as tested is in like 250 000 but despite that the brand is non-pretentious they prioritize engineering and their enthusiasm for Motorsports is genuine and that's something I really appreciate about this brand they really do care so with that thanks for watching hope to see you soon foreignforeign I'm here in Las Vegas for the North American launch of the McLaren Arturo and sadly Mark will not be joining us for this video as he's currently attending smoked meat con 2022. but with that McLaren was kind enough to partner us up with Jeff the chief engineer of the McLaren Arturo and someone who's worked on nearly every McLaren since the McLaren SLR let me briefly give you an exterior interior and Technical overview of the McLaren Arturo from an exterior perspective this is typical McLaren while it is all new and they have definitely changed their manufacturing process to improve QC and potentially simplify some of the manufacturing it is still a very good looking car and thankfully it still has the billionaire doors that go up and down like You're Expecting when you look at the interior of this vehicle again it's traditional McLaren it looks familiar but it is all new you have a very low Dash you have good visibility you have very comfortable seats these are the Comfort Seats there so have performance seats you have the Bowers and Wilkin audio system which is tremendous for a dedicated sports car Supercar while it does not match something like the BMW IX 4A sports car it's very impressive and the subwoofer is actually built into the carbon tub of this car to give you the tightest and punchiest baits possible the Interior Electronics have all been updated they've tried to make it a little bit more ergonomic so your drive mode controls right behind the steering wheel you have the latest version of McLaren's infotainment which has wired Apple carplay wireless apple carplay and thankfully due to the all-new ethernet electrical architecture of this vehicle you can expect OTAs in the future with this latest version of their software as well you also have all the Adas systems and all the other things that probably can keep you safe in your quarter million dollars supercar so when it comes to a technical overview of this vehicle let's start with the carbon tub this is on McLaren's latest architecture which is built to be scaled out in the future and it has designed and manufactured a new carbon tub obviously to include electrification this carbon tub is now built by McLaren in-house as well and then shipped to their assembly plant where these cars are essentially handmade race-based style where this thing is essentially wheeled Station to Station the tub is stronger it is easier to assemble it as less sub-assemblies and the overall weight of this vehicle is 3 300 pounds as a curb weight the front suspension is still double Wishbone it still has hydraulic steering which is very rare in a modern Supercar or sports car and it has normal brakes despite being a hybrid does not have brake by wire the brakes are carbon Ceramics as standard the rear suspension architecture is new it is a multi-link it now deals better with Towing and till out under braking it's more rigid when it comes to the toe arms the joy of going from a multi-link from a double Wishbone setup prior and the rear of this car has the battery pack as well so between the carbon tub and the drivetrain sits the battery pack for this vehicle when it comes to the drivetrain itself it is a all-new engine codenade m630 it is a V6 a 120 degree V6 it is three liters it is Twin Turbo the turbos are by borgworm and they sit between the V so it's a hot V setup between the V6 and the Dual clutch it's a electric motor the electric motor is fed by a 7.4 kilowatt hour battery or somewhere around there again that is right behind you in the carbon tub the combined system output is like 670-ish horsepower and then the mid 500s of torque so this is a phenomenally fast vehicle and the electric motor essentially acts as a Power Fill for the V6 it kicks in at lower RPM it is good for essentially 40 miles of on track eating which is impressive so you don't lose power for 40 miles on track and it is constantly charging the battery which is a great thing the Dual clutch is an 8-speed designed by McLaren much like the engine itself the V6 is the same designed by McLaren manufactured by Ricardo it has eight forward physical gears it is shorter than the Dual clutch it replaces despite it having more gears in the seven speed that predates it however the reverse gear is handled by the electric motor but I think with all of that said it's time to speak to Jeff the chief engineer so we can go into greater detail and walk us through the philosophy of the McLaren Arturo so my name is Jeff gross and I'm the chief engineer for the McLaren Arturo and I started at McLaren 16 years ago as a head of vehicle development so I had the pleasure of working through the original mp412c development and the P1 leading the team that did all the Prototype test and development and all the way through to certification and then I moved into being a chief engineer for the sports Series so the range of cars started with the 570 and went through uh all the way to the 600 LT and uh and moving on on from that to the Altura so Jeff thank you for humoring me and getting on camera I really do appreciate it I've spent a decent amount of time in this car basically 14 Laps on track and half a day in this thing so I have a pretty good taste of what it's like development wise this is an all-new vehicle for you well we knew in developing our first series hybrid car that we needed to start right from scratch so it needed to be a whole new vehicle really important because in order to avoid creating a heavy hybrid we really need to go back to every single component on the car engineering out the weight so that we keep you know a true Supercar type performance but introducing the excitement of an electrified Powertrain this for a lot of enthusiasts and we talked a little bit about this off camera sort of a counter-intuitive product right you're adding hybridization decrease the number of sellers obviously it makes a hell of a lot more power than it used to but how did you manage to still make this feel like a more traditional vehicle obviously there's no brake by wire and you still have hydraulic steering how did you manage to make this feel more organic so I think you know from the um from the powertrain performance and clearly we want that instantaneous throttle response um which actually the electric motor is a perfect um partner to this to this new um this new V6 engine so two of them together creating a really instantaneous response which gives you a really good driver engagement with the electrified power of the electric motor between the gearbox and the actual V6 itself what what is it actually doing can you walk me through what it's doing to the uh Power delivery and where it steps in and where it doesn't sure so um in the in the hybrid mode when both of both the modes are working then we're constantly deciding you know where the torque's going to come from from these those two engines so when you when you tip into the throttle you're going to get a very quick instantaneous response from the electric motor while a turbo spools up electric motor will bleed out a little bit as the turbo comes in so that you end up with a really nice fast but linear response so it feels very natural you know almost like a naturally aspirated car you're not going to get a sudden wave of torque that is is uh is too disruptive so um you know rethinking about how we shape the delivery of that talk for the best kind of performance so it doesn't feel like a very Twitchy car initially sure how one of the questions a lot of people are going to have I guess is how do you manage to keep the power consistent over a long period of time because thermal management with batteries electric motors and obviously two enormous turbos back there is complex to say the least yeah and certainly for for any kind of electrified powertrain you're going to trade off uh what what might be your maximum possible power with what you might deliver consistently and for us we look at a track session and um we typically use the NATO handling track as one of our benchmarks but there are other tracks that we use and uh looking for some consistent performance over a track session so you know you might get a bit of degradation over over a few laps with tires and you you know you might accept a little bit you know but generally you want a really consistent performance so it's not just a a one lap Wonder um that's been really important to us I heard off camera that it was like 40 miles approximately of flat out range theoretically I mean of course it totally depends on the nature of the circuit or the the environment about how it how it works that's the principle behind it you know more than a 20-minute session absolutely yeah well you know you can usually fuel in 20 minutes in some cars as well so uh so yeah it depends on this depends on the circuit you know the cooling for the electric motor is it's separate from the internal combustion engine like can you walk me through the the cooling circuits associated with this vehicle so um because we we have a you know a good history now of working with turbocharged engines we're always thinking about managing the overall heat rejection from the car at a high temperature so we have a big big offset to Ambience so we can get a lot of heat rejection coupled with kneading for the charge cooling to Target a really super low uh temperature of the charge air into the engine so we've always been used to running two parallel circuits one at very low temperature and of course what we find is a lot of those HV elements want to piggyback off that low temperature circuit so we're just using that circuit we're already using for charge Cooling and we're using it for a number of the elements in the HV circuit apart from the battery yeah and the battery shares also shares its cooling but it shares its cooling with the occupant because we use the refrigerant circuit again one compressor one condenser two distributed circuits one for the one for the driver and one for his battery when it comes to the suspension setup your twin tube adaptive dampers pretty wide range of stiffness settings I heard there's almost like a 30 percent difference in stiffness between comfort and track correct yeah so we like to um separate the the the the chassis mounts of the the handling modes from the powertrain so you can choose whether you want to have a comfortable uh dampage setting but an aggressive um track um powertrain performance um but yeah there's a big range between Comfort Sport and track then in uh in the handling modes and uh are they about 15 10 percent yeah but about that you know and this obviously but there's there's um all sorts of different algorithms going on about about what you want to do in terms of speed dependencies and all other all other things going on and um and yeah we have a robust front and rear you know um reasonably traditional although we've gone for a variable wall thickness roll bar on the front for the first time on one of our cars which again saves uh just over a kilo weight actually because you know we've got a lot of roll stiffness you know so it's quite a big component and uh so that was interesting and um you have an Edith now you have a physical set of clutches back there as a native as well yeah yeah yeah yeah how is that change change the Dynamics of the vehicle and what's sort of your goal limit handling for a vehicle like this what are you looking for well I think um what we're trying to do is um we want the best possible driver engagement so um that doesn't necessarily you know sometimes it means you want to drift right you know so it's not all about lap time it's great to go for lap time but also want people to be able to drift and do all the things they want to do to enjoy the car and we think the CDF application is going to really help them do that hydraulic steering you guys are sort of alone on the island with basically Lotus when it comes to implementing hydraulic steering in a sports car walk me through why you've stuck with it and what advantages that's given you so of course we've got an open mind into you know what sort of Technologies we're going to use but for us we feel that the hydraulically assisted steering is still the way to go you know it's still the best for the the the best response and feedback and feel and confidence building for the driver and that couple with the the way we execute the braking system you know so we're not break by wire we're not steer by wire you're getting that real engagement with the um with the response of the vehicle we think it's really important customers and and definitely we think our customers really value it thank you so I'm in Las Vegas heading on track with a gentleman who spent far more time out here than I will ever in my entire life and more time in the 570s Junior 200 yourself to the boys and girls at home my name is Bradley simoncelli I'm an instructor here at dream racing about to enter track here so that's it yeah perfect so you have been here to drive the five something yes I know you've not spent a lot of time in this car as it's wave one yeah how did that car behave at the limit you've spent an unbelievable amount of time in that vehicle what was it like so that car is very stable in the corners it does like to understeer a lot that's where this one is a lot different into where if you turn in hard it does oversteer on Entry that's where the 570s does not do that so that's a big difference in these two cars uh Power bandwise obviously this is far more powerful and you definitely notice it do you feel that it's uh fairly near its delivery the little time you spend in this car yeah it does have that turbo kick like all turbo cars do but there is no lag which I really like so it's very linear so when the brakes here the bridge the brick not break by wires you may or may not be aware and they feel pretty damn good oh yeah those carbon ceramics the awesome breaks what do you look for in a car when you're driving it I guess stability mid Corner most of the time which presents itself as mild understeer correct yes I know a lot of drivers who do like the snap VR steer but as I found out earlier off camera like a dumbass this card will carry a tremendous amount of slip angle but if you're too slow like I was you'll yourself going the wrong way rather quickly was that pretty similar with the 570 so the 570 doesn't really kick out like that I know the 720 here still foreign because it's not a clutch based through death yeah so the 570s as I said you know doesn't really slide that much um I do have time in the 720s that car does like to kick out kind of like this car and it does have a drift mode just like this car yep do you think having a clutch-based rear diff makes this feel a little bit more organic yes I do the next question thank you how do you think the steering in this car compares to some of the other supercars because it is hydraulic compared to which car like some of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis you get that don't have hydraulic steering they're more traditional it's very smooth compared to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini Lamborghini is a very tight steering and Ferrari is very loose in my opinion I think it's very kind of in the middle is very smooth you can feel a lot of the road which I like so it's exactly what you're looking for well I know this isn't your day job by any means but I too appreciate you being a good sport about all this and of course dealing with an like me trying to learn to drive the track in a car at the same time so I guess with that we'll head into the final thoughts sir thank you for your time you're very welcome final thoughts on the McLaren artura and I wanted to say this first huge thanks to Jeff the chief engineer and the entire PR team at McLaren I also wanted to thank Bradley the driving instructor who was assigned to me being on camera is definitely not in his job description but he was kind enough to humor Us and humor me while I asked him all those annoying questions in car so what do I think about the vehicle well from a philosophical perspective I really appreciate what McLaren is trying to accomplish they're taking an all new architecture that has inherent compromises from an Enthusiast perspective batteries less cylinders hybridization but they have made the best of it they definitely have not engineered out the driver and Stripped Away that emotional driving connection they have not done what Acura did with the NSX you actually feel something when you drive this car and all of its inputs are fairly natural which is not something you can say in modern sports cars other than maybe Lotus it's one of the few Brands today that still uses hydraulic steering which is a godsend you feel something through the steering wheel because there's no brake by wire you feel something through the brake pedals it's properly balanced the double Wishbone suspension and the chassis communicates with you and because it has an e-diff it's more natural in the rear to rotate albeit there's a very very small window of slope angle to actually use and I want to be clear this is a first drive program which means I spent about 10 minutes with it on track and four hours on the street so I don't know everything there is to know about the Dynamics of this vehicle to be entirely honest but what I did experience is on Street this is a very refined Driving Experience if you're going to use this as your weekend daily ish driven Supercar it accomplishes that in Spades the carbon tub which again is rare even at this class of vehicle does a good job isolating a lot of the road imperfections it's a fairly quiet car you have tremendous visibility at the front the last time I've been in a sports car that has this much visibility is a first gen NSX and the engine despite having less cylinders and being a hybrid is incredibly smooth and has a nice resonance to it there's no fake engine noise which is a godsend the power delivery is surprisingly linear the electric motor does a good job filling in the low RPM Gap then the twin turbo V6 takes over in the higher RPMs and it is no surprise unbelievably quick at over 670 horsepower and 530ish foot pounds of torque this is one of the fastest rear-wheel drive cars I have ever driven the 8-speed dual clutch at least on the street is nearly faultless and on the track it's fairly responsive the last thing I want to bring up is this brand as a whole McLaren makes very expensive cars this car is no exception even though it's the new entry level sport series car it starts at little over a quarter million dollars and the one as tested is in like 250 000 but despite that the brand is non-pretentious they prioritize engineering and their enthusiasm for Motorsports is genuine and that's something I really appreciate about this brand they really do care so with that thanks for watching hope to see you soon foreignforeign I'm here in Las Vegas for the North American launch of the McLaren Arturo and sadly Mark will not be joining us for this video as he's currently attending smoked meat con 2022. but with that McLaren was kind enough to partner us up with Jeff the chief engineer of the McLaren Arturo and someone who's worked on nearly every McLaren since the McLaren SLR let me briefly give you an exterior interior and Technical overview of the McLaren Arturo from an exterior perspective this is typical McLaren while it is all new and they have definitely changed their manufacturing process to improve QC and potentially simplify some of the manufacturing it is still a very good looking car and thankfully it still has the billionaire doors that go up and down like You're Expecting when you look at the interior of this vehicle again it's traditional McLaren it looks familiar but it is all new you have a very low Dash you have good visibility you have very comfortable seats these are the Comfort Seats there so have performance seats you have the Bowers and Wilkin audio system which is tremendous for a dedicated sports car Supercar while it does not match something like the BMW IX 4A sports car it's very impressive and the subwoofer is actually built into the carbon tub of this car to give you the tightest and punchiest baits possible the Interior Electronics have all been updated they've tried to make it a little bit more ergonomic so your drive mode controls right behind the steering wheel you have the latest version of McLaren's infotainment which has wired Apple carplay wireless apple carplay and thankfully due to the all-new ethernet electrical architecture of this vehicle you can expect OTAs in the future with this latest version of their software as well you also have all the Adas systems and all the other things that probably can keep you safe in your quarter million dollars supercar so when it comes to a technical overview of this vehicle let's start with the carbon tub this is on McLaren's latest architecture which is built to be scaled out in the future and it has designed and manufactured a new carbon tub obviously to include electrification this carbon tub is now built by McLaren in-house as well and then shipped to their assembly plant where these cars are essentially handmade race-based style where this thing is essentially wheeled Station to Station the tub is stronger it is easier to assemble it as less sub-assemblies and the overall weight of this vehicle is 3 300 pounds as a curb weight the front suspension is still double Wishbone it still has hydraulic steering which is very rare in a modern Supercar or sports car and it has normal brakes despite being a hybrid does not have brake by wire the brakes are carbon Ceramics as standard the rear suspension architecture is new it is a multi-link it now deals better with Towing and till out under braking it's more rigid when it comes to the toe arms the joy of going from a multi-link from a double Wishbone setup prior and the rear of this car has the battery pack as well so between the carbon tub and the drivetrain sits the battery pack for this vehicle when it comes to the drivetrain itself it is a all-new engine codenade m630 it is a V6 a 120 degree V6 it is three liters it is Twin Turbo the turbos are by borgworm and they sit between the V so it's a hot V setup between the V6 and the Dual clutch it's a electric motor the electric motor is fed by a 7.4 kilowatt hour battery or somewhere around there again that is right behind you in the carbon tub the combined system output is like 670-ish horsepower and then the mid 500s of torque so this is a phenomenally fast vehicle and the electric motor essentially acts as a Power Fill for the V6 it kicks in at lower RPM it is good for essentially 40 miles of on track eating which is impressive so you don't lose power for 40 miles on track and it is constantly charging the battery which is a great thing the Dual clutch is an 8-speed designed by McLaren much like the engine itself the V6 is the same designed by McLaren manufactured by Ricardo it has eight forward physical gears it is shorter than the Dual clutch it replaces despite it having more gears in the seven speed that predates it however the reverse gear is handled by the electric motor but I think with all of that said it's time to speak to Jeff the chief engineer so we can go into greater detail and walk us through the philosophy of the McLaren Arturo so my name is Jeff gross and I'm the chief engineer for the McLaren Arturo and I started at McLaren 16 years ago as a head of vehicle development so I had the pleasure of working through the original mp412c development and the P1 leading the team that did all the Prototype test and development and all the way through to certification and then I moved into being a chief engineer for the sports Series so the range of cars started with the 570 and went through uh all the way to the 600 LT and uh and moving on on from that to the Altura so Jeff thank you for humoring me and getting on camera I really do appreciate it I've spent a decent amount of time in this car basically 14 Laps on track and half a day in this thing so I have a pretty good taste of what it's like development wise this is an all-new vehicle for you well we knew in developing our first series hybrid car that we needed to start right from scratch so it needed to be a whole new vehicle really important because in order to avoid creating a heavy hybrid we really need to go back to every single component on the car engineering out the weight so that we keep you know a true Supercar type performance but introducing the excitement of an electrified Powertrain this for a lot of enthusiasts and we talked a little bit about this off camera sort of a counter-intuitive product right you're adding hybridization decrease the number of sellers obviously it makes a hell of a lot more power than it used to but how did you manage to still make this feel like a more traditional vehicle obviously there's no brake by wire and you still have hydraulic steering how did you manage to make this feel more organic so I think you know from the um from the powertrain performance and clearly we want that instantaneous throttle response um which actually the electric motor is a perfect um partner to this to this new um this new V6 engine so two of them together creating a really instantaneous response which gives you a really good driver engagement with the electrified power of the electric motor between the gearbox and the actual V6 itself what what is it actually doing can you walk me through what it's doing to the uh Power delivery and where it steps in and where it doesn't sure so um in the in the hybrid mode when both of both the modes are working then we're constantly deciding you know where the torque's going to come from from these those two engines so when you when you tip into the throttle you're going to get a very quick instantaneous response from the electric motor while a turbo spools up electric motor will bleed out a little bit as the turbo comes in so that you end up with a really nice fast but linear response so it feels very natural you know almost like a naturally aspirated car you're not going to get a sudden wave of torque that is is uh is too disruptive so um you know rethinking about how we shape the delivery of that talk for the best kind of performance so it doesn't feel like a very Twitchy car initially sure how one of the questions a lot of people are going to have I guess is how do you manage to keep the power consistent over a long period of time because thermal management with batteries electric motors and obviously two enormous turbos back there is complex to say the least yeah and certainly for for any kind of electrified powertrain you're going to trade off uh what what might be your maximum possible power with what you might deliver consistently and for us we look at a track session and um we typically use the NATO handling track as one of our benchmarks but there are other tracks that we use and uh looking for some consistent performance over a track session so you know you might get a bit of degradation over over a few laps with tires and you you know you might accept a little bit you know but generally you want a really consistent performance so it's not just a a one lap Wonder um that's been really important to us I heard off camera that it was like 40 miles approximately of flat out range theoretically I mean of course it totally depends on the nature of the circuit or the the environment about how it how it works that's the principle behind it you know more than a 20-minute session absolutely yeah well you know you can usually fuel in 20 minutes in some cars as well so uh so yeah it depends on this depends on the circuit you know the cooling for the electric motor is it's separate from the internal combustion engine like can you walk me through the the cooling circuits associated with this vehicle so um because we we have a you know a good history now of working with turbocharged engines we're always thinking about managing the overall heat rejection from the car at a high temperature so we have a big big offset to Ambience so we can get a lot of heat rejection coupled with kneading for the charge cooling to Target a really super low uh temperature of the charge air into the engine so we've always been used to running two parallel circuits one at very low temperature and of course what we find is a lot of those HV elements want to piggyback off that low temperature circuit so we're just using that circuit we're already using for charge Cooling and we're using it for a number of the elements in the HV circuit apart from the battery yeah and the battery shares also shares its cooling but it shares its cooling with the occupant because we use the refrigerant circuit again one compressor one condenser two distributed circuits one for the one for the driver and one for his battery when it comes to the suspension setup your twin tube adaptive dampers pretty wide range of stiffness settings I heard there's almost like a 30 percent difference in stiffness between comfort and track correct yeah so we like to um separate the the the the chassis mounts of the the handling modes from the powertrain so you can choose whether you want to have a comfortable uh dampage setting but an aggressive um track um powertrain performance um but yeah there's a big range between Comfort Sport and track then in uh in the handling modes and uh are they about 15 10 percent yeah but about that you know and this obviously but there's there's um all sorts of different algorithms going on about about what you want to do in terms of speed dependencies and all other all other things going on and um and yeah we have a robust front and rear you know um reasonably traditional although we've gone for a variable wall thickness roll bar on the front for the first time on one of our cars which again saves uh just over a kilo weight actually because you know we've got a lot of roll stiffness you know so it's quite a big component and uh so that was interesting and um you have an Edith now you have a physical set of clutches back there as a native as well yeah yeah yeah yeah how is that change change the Dynamics of the vehicle and what's sort of your goal limit handling for a vehicle like this what are you looking for well I think um what we're trying to do is um we want the best possible driver engagement so um that doesn't necessarily you know sometimes it means you want to drift right you know so it's not all about lap time it's great to go for lap time but also want people to be able to drift and do all the things they want to do to enjoy the car and we think the CDF application is going to really help them do that hydraulic steering you guys are sort of alone on the island with basically Lotus when it comes to implementing hydraulic steering in a sports car walk me through why you've stuck with it and what advantages that's given you so of course we've got an open mind into you know what sort of Technologies we're going to use but for us we feel that the hydraulically assisted steering is still the way to go you know it's still the best for the the the best response and feedback and feel and confidence building for the driver and that couple with the the way we execute the braking system you know so we're not break by wire we're not steer by wire you're getting that real engagement with the um with the response of the vehicle we think it's really important customers and and definitely we think our customers really value it thank you so I'm in Las Vegas heading on track with a gentleman who spent far more time out here than I will ever in my entire life and more time in the 570s Junior 200 yourself to the boys and girls at home my name is Bradley simoncelli I'm an instructor here at dream racing about to enter track here so that's it yeah perfect so you have been here to drive the five something yes I know you've not spent a lot of time in this car as it's wave one yeah how did that car behave at the limit you've spent an unbelievable amount of time in that vehicle what was it like so that car is very stable in the corners it does like to understeer a lot that's where this one is a lot different into where if you turn in hard it does oversteer on Entry that's where the 570s does not do that so that's a big difference in these two cars uh Power bandwise obviously this is far more powerful and you definitely notice it do you feel that it's uh fairly near its delivery the little time you spend in this car yeah it does have that turbo kick like all turbo cars do but there is no lag which I really like so it's very linear so when the brakes here the bridge the brick not break by wires you may or may not be aware and they feel pretty damn good oh yeah those carbon ceramics the awesome breaks what do you look for in a car when you're driving it I guess stability mid Corner most of the time which presents itself as mild understeer correct yes I know a lot of drivers who do like the snap VR steer but as I found out earlier off camera like a dumbass this card will carry a tremendous amount of slip angle but if you're too slow like I was you'll yourself going the wrong way rather quickly was that pretty similar with the 570 so the 570 doesn't really kick out like that I know the 720 here still foreign because it's not a clutch based through death yeah so the 570s as I said you know doesn't really slide that much um I do have time in the 720s that car does like to kick out kind of like this car and it does have a drift mode just like this car yep do you think having a clutch-based rear diff makes this feel a little bit more organic yes I do the next question thank you how do you think the steering in this car compares to some of the other supercars because it is hydraulic compared to which car like some of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis you get that don't have hydraulic steering they're more traditional it's very smooth compared to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini Lamborghini is a very tight steering and Ferrari is very loose in my opinion I think it's very kind of in the middle is very smooth you can feel a lot of the road which I like so it's exactly what you're looking for well I know this isn't your day job by any means but I too appreciate you being a good sport about all this and of course dealing with an like me trying to learn to drive the track in a car at the same time so I guess with that we'll head into the final thoughts sir thank you for your time you're very welcome final thoughts on the McLaren artura and I wanted to say this first huge thanks to Jeff the chief engineer and the entire PR team at McLaren I also wanted to thank Bradley the driving instructor who was assigned to me being on camera is definitely not in his job description but he was kind enough to humor Us and humor me while I asked him all those annoying questions in car so what do I think about the vehicle well from a philosophical perspective I really appreciate what McLaren is trying to accomplish they're taking an all new architecture that has inherent compromises from an Enthusiast perspective batteries less cylinders hybridization but they have made the best of it they definitely have not engineered out the driver and Stripped Away that emotional driving connection they have not done what Acura did with the NSX you actually feel something when you drive this car and all of its inputs are fairly natural which is not something you can say in modern sports cars other than maybe Lotus it's one of the few Brands today that still uses hydraulic steering which is a godsend you feel something through the steering wheel because there's no brake by wire you feel something through the brake pedals it's properly balanced the double Wishbone suspension and the chassis communicates with you and because it has an e-diff it's more natural in the rear to rotate albeit there's a very very small window of slope angle to actually use and I want to be clear this is a first drive program which means I spent about 10 minutes with it on track and four hours on the street so I don't know everything there is to know about the Dynamics of this vehicle to be entirely honest but what I did experience is on Street this is a very refined Driving Experience if you're going to use this as your weekend daily ish driven Supercar it accomplishes that in Spades the carbon tub which again is rare even at this class of vehicle does a good job isolating a lot of the road imperfections it's a fairly quiet car you have tremendous visibility at the front the last time I've been in a sports car that has this much visibility is a first gen NSX and the engine despite having less cylinders and being a hybrid is incredibly smooth and has a nice resonance to it there's no fake engine noise which is a godsend the power delivery is surprisingly linear the electric motor does a good job filling in the low RPM Gap then the twin turbo V6 takes over in the higher RPMs and it is no surprise unbelievably quick at over 670 horsepower and 530ish foot pounds of torque this is one of the fastest rear-wheel drive cars I have ever driven the 8-speed dual clutch at least on the street is nearly faultless and on the track it's fairly responsive the last thing I want to bring up is this brand as a whole McLaren makes very expensive cars this car is no exception even though it's the new entry level sport series car it starts at little over a quarter million dollars and the one as tested is in like 250 000 but despite that the brand is non-pretentious they prioritize engineering and their enthusiasm for Motorsports is genuine and that's something I really appreciate about this brand they really do care so with that thanks for watching hope to see you soon foreign\n"