Base Rear-Wheel Drive Coupe
2024 McLaren 750S

LAS VEGAS – The Valley of Fire just got several degrees hotter. The McLaren 750S Spider convertible I’m driving is spearing through the Nevada valley’s blushing outcrops of red Aztec sandstone, generating a pace so lurid that it might just rearrange the rocks in its fearsome path. The lonely Mojave Desert seems as good a place as any to engage launch control, hold tight to the Spider’s idyllically formed steering wheel, and experience what 740 horsepower feels like. A class-leading dry weight of 2,815 pounds gives the Coupe version the best power-to-weight ratio of any series-production McLaren yet, with the Spider just a bit below it on the pecking order with only about 100 pounds added. Sixty miles per hour is dispatched so quickly (a company-tested 2.7 seconds) that there’s no time to mark its passing. An official 7.3 seconds to 124 mph (7.2 seconds for the Coupe) is more to the point; coincidentally right atop a Ferrari 296 GTB hybrid that delivers 79 more electrified V-6 horsepower, but weighs 425 more pounds by McLaren’s measure. A quarter-mile takes 10.1 seconds in the Coupe, or a top-down 10.3 seconds: Sizzling for sure, but here the Ferrari is quicker at 9.7 seconds, putting a thumb on the scale with its electric-motor boost. With every vein-popping accelerative burst, McLaren’s weight-saving exhaust testifies to a more stirring sound (versus the departed 720S) with every snort from its high-mounted nostrils. The way McLaren engineers sweated the harmonic orders and crescendos of that stainless-steel exhaust – addressing the flat, uninspired voice that was really the only sensory failing of the 720S – underscores how the 750S is more than a mildly hotted-up 720S with 30 additional horses from a twin-turbocharged, 4.0-liter V8. “We absolutely dialed up the fun factor of this car,” said Jamie Corstorphine, director of product strategy. The car that McLaren conceived as a supercar with hypercar performance – including a straight-from-Senna “Track Brake Upgrade” pack with monobloc calipers (an extra $18,050) – also shows how well and quickly the brand has cemented its technical standing and market mindshare versus the veteran Ferrari and Lamborghini. The Woking, U.K., automaker known first for racing glory, including late founder Bruce McLaren’s record-setting CanAm run at Las Vegas’ mob-connected Stardust International Raceway in 1968, seems here to stay in the road-car business. Customer connection and enthusiasm shows in the 750S’ sold-out status through spring 2025. Over the 750S’ planned life cycle of 2.5 to 3 years, more than half the cars allocated to the Americas (90% of those in the U.S.) are already spoken for, with fewer than 900 left for potential owners. I’m glad you asked: A 750S Coupe starts from $331,740, a Spider from $352,740. Those base prices are extra-base, even if one doesn’t choose, say, a $90,000 Gulf Oil livery, or carbon-fiber packs for the “Upper Structure” or “Underbody” at $17,800 a crack. A caloric schmear of 27 extra-cost options, including gorgeous Ceramic Gray paint from McLaren Special Operations ($9,900), lifted this particular …
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