McLaren’s hybrid supercar, the Artura Spider: “It’s sublime”
Driving a supercar was once akin to taking control of a monster that runs on a combination of molten lava and absinthe. In this McLaren Artura Spider, it all feels a bit too accessible.
Let’s start this morning by going back to the dawn of the supercar. The Lamborghini Miura and then the Countach. The Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer. The Maserati Merak and Bora. We stuck posters of these cars on our bedroom walls and drooled over that scene at the beginning of The Italian Job, imagining that one day it would be us, on that road, in that car, smoothing along to the sounds of Matt Monro and the big V12.
We yearned for beautiful and fast cars like this and some of us, Rod Stewart mostly, were able to achieve the dream and actually buy one. This made us grind our teeth with envy. But the truth is that back then Rod was having a pretty torrid time, as early supercars were terrible.
The problem was if you put the engine in the middle of a car and made it enormous and as powerful as modern technology would allow, you’d create drawbacks. Such as needing a left leg like a tugboat to move the clutch pedal, and biceps like Arnie had in Commando to change gear. And you couldn’t have either of those as the cabin was far too tiny. Certainly there wouldn’t have been enough room in there for Rod’s hair.
I’ve been racking my brains to name the first mid-engined supercar that was big enough for normal people to fit inside, and manageable enough for them to want to. It’s a tough, contentious call, but I’m going to go for the Honda NSX in 1990. Ferrari still hadn’t mastered the art of making power accessible until the F355 in 1994, and Lamborghini was still making life difficult for its customers way into the 2000s.
Now, though, there’s a new problem. The power is too accessible. The controls are too light. The space is too plentiful. Really, with a supercar, you need to be reminded from the moment you unlock the door that you are about to take control of a monster that runs on a combination of molten lava and absinthe. But often it feels as if you’re climbing into a Golf. And if the car is a hybrid? Well, it doesn’t even bark at your neighbours when you turn it on. You bought an XL Bully and it acts like a bloody labrador.
All of which brings me on to the door of the new McLaren Artura Spider. Artura? It’s a combination, apparently, of the words “art” and “future”. Yes. But so is “fart”.
I’m both tall and fat but I could climb in easily, even with the roof in place, and obviously that’s a good thing. Or is it? Maybe there should be a sense of achievement when you finally end up in the seat. Like you’ve got there through an underwater cave. But what a seat you end up in. I’ve argued for many years that the best seats ever fitted to a car were to be found in the Renault Fuego turbo. But the Artura beats that. God, they’re good.
And there’s another good thing. Like all new cars, the McLaren is fitted with its own health and safety department that beeps and bongs if it thinks you’re doing something wrong. But here’s the thing. The Artura beeps only as you break whatever speed limit is imposed, but then that’s it. Providing you stay above the speed limit, it has no more to say on the matter.
I was less enamoured of the hybrid drive system. The first supercar I ever drove that combined a proper engine with vacuum cleaner technology was a McLaren, the P1. I loved how they’d taken this peace-and-love Thunbergery and weaponised it to beat the system. But in the Artura you feel it’s there to comply with the system. And that grates.
Still, the electric motor is of an entirely new design and is consequently very light. And that’s in keeping with everything else in the car. The engine. The body. The suspension. It’s all made of feathers. And you feel this lightness when you’re driving. This doesn’t feel like a supercar. It feels like a sports car. Again, that could be seen as a bad thing. Unless you’re me, as I prefer sports cars to supercars.
It’s certainly very fast, whatever it is. And apparently, for the 2025 model, the laptop boys at the factory in Woking have been very busy tweaking here and adding a hashtag or two there. So far as I can tell, they’ve even tweaked a little burst of power into the eyelash gap between gear changes. God knows how. Or why. But in Track mode there is a sense you are in one gear and then instantly, you’re in another.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t use Track mode much, because it’s winter, and for the same reason I didn’t drive with the roof down either. But I quite like the idea that you can.
What I did do was use the Artura on the stunning roads that connect my farm with my pub. And I have to be honest, it was sublime. In normal mode the ride ironed out all but the very worst of the potholes, the noise was pitched perfectly and the steering was weighted just so. It felt as if I was driving, how can I put this, a car. A very nice car. And a very fast car. But when all is said and done, just a car. Everything that used to make a mid-engined supercar difficult and hirsute and hard is gone. You can be lazy and own an Artura. Maybe that’s how the world is these days. No one wants to put in a shift any more. We want it all on a plate.
I think we need difficulty in our lives. It’s why we’ve always enjoyed the idea of an old house. We want the idiosyncrasies. A few draughts. A door that needs kicking in just the right place before it’ll open, and a couple of smoky fireplaces.
Ferrari gets around this problem by being daft with the interior layout; nothing is where it’s meant to be and nothing is intuitive. In the McLaren, everything is. And I’ve been pondering which one I’d buy. This, or the new 296.
But then I remembered that last year I accidentally had a Porsche 911 Turbo on test for a week. And if I were you, I’d go for one of those. Not just because it’s a proper car with a proper drive system. It also offers up just the right blend of convenience, ease of use, terror and difficulty. It’s an old house with wi-fi and double glazing. It’s the sweet spot.
McLaren Artura Spider
ENGINE: 3.0-litre V6, twin-turbo, petrol plus electric motor
PERFORMANCE: 0-100km/h 3.0 seconds; top speed 330km/h
PRICE: From $464, 650
RATING: 4 out of 5
More Coverage
