Just before Christmas, McLaren Automotive subtly shared some good news of its own. Remember the brand’s new three-seat hyper-GT called the Speedtail? Yeah, they’ve been speed testing it and the results are quite promising.
The McLaren Speedtail is one of the most elegant-looking fast GTs of today and the newest addition to the brand’s Ultimate Series line of products. It was first unveiled back in November 2018 and it was a return to the three-seat layout for the British supercar maker. But instead of chasing thrilling performance, the Speedtail is engineered to go ridiculously fast in comfort. So, still aiming at the Bugatti Chiron but not at the top-speed record. At the unveil itself, McLaren announced that the Speedtail would hit v-max at 403kph(250mph).
Now, McLaren has finished the final high-speed testing of the Speedtail at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The Speedtail prototype ‘XP2’ was able to reach its maximum speed more than 30 times on the same landing strip that space shuttles land on. McLaren put the Speedtail through its paces at other tests facilities too like Idiada in Spain and Papenburg in Germany.
Few updates on the McLaren’s powertrain too. It comprises of a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 with an electric motor for a parallel hybrid system that has a combined output of 1055bhp and 1150Nm. The e-motor is powered by a 5.2kW/kg battery pack that was developed in-house. It’s not a PHEV so the batteries recharge as you drive.
Only 106 units of the McLaren Speedtail will be built, hand-assembled in Woking, UK, and deliveries will start from February 2020. All of these were accounted for at the time of unveiling and. McLaren Automotive will allow a high degree of customization so each unit will be bespoke to each of its 106 customers.
Are you excited to see the first of the customer-spec Speedtails in action? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a like if you enjoyed this post and don’t forget to subscribe to The Auto Loons for all the updates on our latest content.
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