Three months after its summer launch at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed, the McLaren 570S Spider has landed in Japan just in time for autumn. While it might not be the obvious season to launch a new mid-engine convertible supercar the milder autumn weather is more ideal for open top exotic motoring.
The 570S Spider joins the 570S Coupe and 570GT, as well as the 540C in McLaren’s Sport Series range. It’s powered by the same 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 producing 570hp and 600NM of torque. 0-100 km/h is done in 3.2 seconds and top speed is 328 km/h with the top on and 315 with it off
With Japan being the fastest growing market in Asia, as well as McLaren’s 4th overall largest market with 6% of total production going to the Land of the Rising Sun, it made sense for the Woking manufacturer to unveil their fourth model in the Sport Series range relatively close after its global debut at Goodwood.
Like McLaren’s other Spiders, the 570S features a retractable hard top which can be raised and lowered in 15 seconds and at speeds of up to 40 km/h. Amazingly, McLaren only increased the weight of the 570S Spider by about 46kg over the Coupe.
Prices of the 570S Spider will start from 29,880,000 with the first 400 being the special ‘Launch Edition’ cars. These come in specially curated specs painted in Sicilian Yellow, Vega Blue, and Curacao Blue (that’s the car you see here). These should arrive in New Zealand just in time for the summer.
But what was more impressive were the other cars McLaren brought to the Osanbashi Pier in Yokohama where the launch was held. As well as the rest of the McLaren Sport Series range, there was also a MP4-10 F1 car from a time when McLaren-Honda relations where better.
There was a white McLaren P1, the modern hypercar with a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 mated to a hybrid powertrain to produce a total of 900hp. But even more impressive than that was the legendary McLaren F1 road car next to it.
The silver example was road car number 70 and has appeared at various events in Japan from time to time. It was an unexpected guest appearance, especially at the launch of McLaren’s “baby” sports car.
I guess McLaren Automotive Japan wanted to leave an impression. They also used this event as an opportunity to plug the ‘McLaren’ documentary that’s recently been released in Japan. I’ve seen this doco and urge everyone with an ounce of soul in them to watch it.
It was Bruce’s dream to build a road car. He’d be quite pleased with the current state of McLaren Automotive, especially with their plans for the future. I don’t know if the same could be said about McLaren’s current state in Formula 1 though.