Ferrari gone, McLaren arrived!

My Ferrari journey has come to an end, for now anyway

Whilst it was absolutely awesome, it lacked modern driving conveniences and the seats hurt my back. I had a sneaky look at one of these last year and had been 'sort of' keeping an eye on them over the last couple of months - and then a couple of weeks ago I saw this car on the other side of the country (UK), and once I saw it, and they offered what I thought was a decent price to take my Ferrari in part ex, I just had to have it.

It's a 2019 McLaren 540C in Blade Silver, its done 3000 miles and I'm the 5th owner in 6 years, which boggles my mind!

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This place has been an invaluable source of information/support, and I hope I've been able to add a little of my own over the last couple of years too.

Jeff

 

Congrats. Nice. I too have been lured at one time to a McLaren GT. But I've just been so happy with my 360 in all ways that I just couldn't pull the trigger.
Life is short, enjoy it brother.

 

Congrats. What are your initial thoughts on the differences between the two? Drive, feel, attention, etc.

 

Obviously it's quite a lot more powerful, the turbos must be quite big too as they dont really do anything until 3500/4000rpm but once you're up there it goes like a rocket. Steering is sharper, faster and you can feel a lot of detail of the road, I think its an old fashioned hydraulic rack which helps, its really very good.

I havent really had chance to drive it a lot just yet, and I'm taking it easy because it really is a very powerful car for road use. Apparently you can easily map them up to well over 600hp with no hardware changes, but 540hp is enough for me for the moment(!)

Inside its extremely nice. Mine is missing the B&W stereo option, but has a lot of the other common options (nose lift, parking sensors, rear camera, electric memory heated seats, carbon steering wheel & paddles and a few other carbon pieces). As standard it has cruise control, DAB radio, LED lights, self dimming rear view mirror, lots of airbags - all the stuff modern cars have that made the Ferrari a bit of a chore to drive when you were just driving it as a car.

And the doors are cool lol

 

get us a driving update and comparison!

 

Congrat's!

I still have my F430, but have had a McLaren 720S Spider for going on two years now and I absolutely love it! Truly ridiculous performance level and it has had rock-solid reliability. The key with Mclarens is to DRIVE THEM, not just let them sit.


I was just out for some mountain twisties earlier today!
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looks good. how many miles you got on the 720s?

 

I have a 360 and a 650S. Not a bad combo.
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I don't know why but Mac's leave me cold and because they don't interest me, I could not tell one model from another. I'm told they are fast though, but then so is a 911 Turbo! I might wager a bet that there will be a 6th owner on the log book within a year!

 

A few of us on here own McLaren's as well as our Ferrari's.

Here's my 'build up' of a road legal GT3R Inspired Spec of my 12C. This build was actually inspired by my 360 build and I used a lot of the same techniques that Ferrari and McLaren used to develop their racing and fast road cars. So stuff like a lot of weight reduction, along with a LOT more downforce, nearly 1 tonne at high speeds which is other worldly when going fast on a track but it does limit your top speed somewhat.

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The car has a lot of parts from the McLaren 675LT like suspension and genuine GT3 racing and Sprint parts. Most of these are unobtainium so this really is a 1:1 car. The entire bodywork goes to carbon so the entire structure (chassis) and bodywork are all carbon, just like a 675LT, the difference here being significantly more downforce and much more cooling upgrades too.

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Without a doubt with 700hp+ and incredible GT3 racing parts the car is one of the faster cars on most tracks. It wasn't a problem to dispatch a gaggle of new Porsche GT3 RS's, taking them on fast corners even without trying.

In comparing the 360 to the 12C, I would say the 360 requires much more skill and therefore is much more engaging and enjoyable to challenge yourself, going for lap times. The 12C is quite easy to extract fast lap times from and is incredibly forgiving even if you get the wrong racing line completely through a corner it will help you get back inline, the 360 is a different beast but both are super fun on any track.

As for the McLaren's feeling boring, well the stock setup is very quiet, so an Akropovic titanium system and sports cats can make a big impact here, but its true that to get a really good rythm with the McLaren's you need to be driving a LOT faster and then you find their natural speed is simply a lot higher. I find the same thing with all modern Ferrari's. I would say the McLaren's of this era are very similar to the Pista or F8 Tributo in terms of how long it took Ferrari to catch up and they feel the same when going slow too...