Lightweight philosophy, more power and heavily enhanced aero pays homage to the blueprint of the Longtail legend.
Callum Alexander | Callum on Cars | CrackersCal
McLaren have added a lightweight convertible model into their Sports Series segment, called the 600LT Spider. It will be going up against the likes of the Porsche GT3 RS and Merc AMG GTR Pro. Can it assert itself at the summit?
Let’s start with the name. The LT bit is named after the F1 GTR Longtail, a road car converted race car that came first and second in the GT1 Class at 24 hours of Le Mans in 1997. It became known as the Longtail because of its elongated bodywork – it reduced drag and increased downforce, a win-win formula. Its discernible profile made it distinguishable, an icon of motorsport. McLaren have used the Longtail legend template to hallmark their most exclusive models; it bestows the 600LT with a peerage and an aura of symbolic significance. It follows the F1 Longtails blueprint of increased power, reduced weight and enhanced aero.
The 600LT Spider has essentially been put on a workout and diet plan, resulting in some serious gains. Power has swelled to 592bhp, 30 more than the 570S Spider its modelled on. It also makes 620nm torque from an uprated 3.8 litre Twin Turbo V8 - the engine electronics have been revised and cooling system recalibrated.
McLaren 600LT Spider
Price: £201,500
Engine: 3.8 twin-turbo V8, 592bhp, 457 lb ft
Transmission: 7 Speed SSG, RWD
Performance: 0-62mph in 2.9secs, 0-124mph in 8.4secs, 201mph
Economy: n/a mpg, n/a g/km CO2
Weight: 1297kg
But it’s the weight shedding that meddles with your mind the most. Its dry weight is just 1297kg, only 50kg more than the 600LT Coupe and 100kg less than the 570S Spider. Putting that up against the selected rivals, and it makes startling reading: it’s 133kg lighter than the 991 GT3 RS and a whopping 258kg less than the AMG GTR. That’s an emphatic difference, completely trouncing and subverting two haloed corner stones in the sports car realm.
But you can go even further than that. For obsessive clients keen to ditch every kilo possible; the audio and climate control systems can be omitted entirely - justifiable for track driving. In this instance, for audible entertainment, you’ll just have make do with the V8 sound track; a compromised consequence that I think I could learn to like. Every tenth counts when you’re trying to beat a Ford Fiesta around the Nürburgring.
The parallels are even more stark when you consider the 600LT Spider is a convertible: the Retractable Hard Top (RHT) roof can be opened or closed up to speeds of 25mph. Though through the carbon fibre MonoCell II chassis, McLaren have not needed to add strengthening to maintain structural rigidity. This is coalesced by body work made entirely from carbon fibre, finessed by aerodynamics; this channelled airflow means the 600LT Spider generates 100kg of downforce at 155mph.
This functional exterior appeases visually also; it looks honed, the muscular body hunkered like a harpoon ready to lance its rivals. The chassis backs up the aero trickery, with forged aluminium double-wishbone suspension with recast dampers, sterner engine mounts and a lightweight braking system cocooning carbon ceramic discs. Reassuring to know when hurtling around a sweeping bend on the North Circular in London.
All this forensic fettling culminates into pulverising performance. The 600LT Spider will bolt to 62mph in a jolting 2.9 seconds, before eclipsing 124mph in 8.4 seconds – just 0.2 seconds slower than the 600LT Coupe – and the speed won’t stop climbing until 201mph is reached with the roof raised or 196mph with the roof retracted.
You might want to forgo the extra 5mph to bask in the party piece the 600LT Spider bestows: top-exit exhausts on the engine bay. That liberating element will surely add a feral sounding bellow bouncing about your eardrums on a sun-flicked drive. But for when it isn’t sunny and you want an audible awakening with the roof up, the electronically-operated glazed wind deflector can be independently retracted to allow the sound to spill into the cabin.
The interior is a concoction of lightweight materials: carbon fibre racing seats from the McLaren P1 and Alcantara upholstery to add a modicum of comfort. To save some more weight, you can have the super-lightweight carbon fibre racing seats, from the McLaren Senna. They can come on their own or, if you want to junk even more kilograms, as part of the McLaren Special Operations Clubsport Pack. That also includes a host of additional skimping measures: a carbon fibre interior, front fender louvres and titanium wheel bolts. All this for a snip at £18,200.
This 600LT Spider has put this writer in a bit of a conundrum regarding its standing in the pecking order of sportscars. It is the hottest version of the Sports Series, the entry level segment of McLaren road cars, yet it has the performance to compete with rivals beyond its target market. It could comfortably be a rival to the Ferrari 488 Pista Spider. The overlapping performance potential the 600LT Spider is capable of reshapes conventional rivalry between sportscars and supercars. Will the others up their game to match? Guess we will find out.
The McLaren 600LT Spider costs from £201,500 and it’s available now.
Callum Alexander | Callum on Cars | CrackersCal
Photos: McLaren
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