Review: McLaren Artura Spider Hybrid

While the world awaits Ferrari’s first all-electric car—due next year—archrival McLaren insists that the technology doesn’t yet exist to deliver an EV worthy of its name.

Power clearly isn’t the problem, but weight is the enemy in Woking, McLaren's UK headquarters, and batteries aren’t getting lighter fast enough. Going fully electric results in unacceptable compromises to a car’s dynamics, McLaren says.

Light weight isn’t just a philosophy to these guys, it’s dogma, and, like all such things, that doesn’t suggest much in the way of progressive thinking. Until you arrive at a corner at, shall we say, a committed velocity in the new Artura Spider.

Few cars are as fluid, balanced, and rewarding as this, a lissome-looking machine, which soon has you thinking like a racing driver: Plotting entry, apex, and exit, dallying with a trailing throttle or trying to dial out understeer. It gets right under your skin.

McLaren doesn’t even rate fully electric steering as pure enough, and the Artura’s precision feel is undoubtedly helped by an old-school hydraulic setup. Apparently, it’s almost identical to the steering configuration in the 600 LT, which is nothing less than one of the greatest-handling cars ever made.

Pimped P1 Power

Yet it would be a grave error to mistake McLaren for a tech refusenik. Far from it. Core to the Artura’s astonishing athleticism is its carbon-composite chassis (MCLA for short), which delivers both tremendous structural integrity and impressive lateral bending stiffness.

It’s made in the company’s dedicated UK facility in Sheffield, and McLaren’s use of carbon fiber throughout its model range puts one over on Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche, all of whom reserve this costly material for their most expensive hypercars.

The Artura is also a hybrid, deepening the company’s expertise in an area it first explored on 2013’s ground-breaking P1. The combustion engine is a 3.0-liter twin turbo V6, harnessed here to an axial flux e-motor, which is integrated into the gearbox’s bell housing.

Improvements in the engine mapping have increased the overall power output to 690 brake horsepower, a rise of 20 bhp over Artura v1.0. Rather than a 90-degree V, the cylinders sit at a 120-degree angle, which reduces pressure losses in the exhaust. The twin turbos sit within in a “hot vee” configuration, which means they can spin faster with helpful consequences for throttle response.

Artura v2.0 also gets a revised exhaust system, with a new resonator and conically shaped tailpipe to sharpen the engine note in the middle and higher part of the rev range. The company’s CEO, former Ferrari chief technology officer Michael Leiters, likes his cars to sound full-blooded.

The e-motor produces the same 94 bhp and 166 pound-feet as before, though it cuts in slightly earlier now. It’s fed by a 7.4-kWh battery pack that’s packaged behind the seats, and consists of five lithium-ion modules. It’s refrigerant-cooled using cooling rails, and the assembly is bolted to the rear base of the chassis for maximum stiffness and crash protection.

The claimed range in electric mode has risen from 19 to 21 miles, thanks to improved energy density. In fact, McLaren says that the power density per kilogram here is 33 percent greater than the system used on the P1. Note also that the Artura’s chassis incorporates an Ethernet electrical network that reduces cabling by 25 percent while increasing data capacity and speeds. Another weight saving.

Nuanced Design

The Artura v2.0 and Spider receive updates in other areas. The adaptive dampers get new valving, and changes to the control software speed up and sharpen response time for even keener body control. New engine mounts increase the impression that the car is pivoting around the driver. Also helpful here is the Artura’s compact size, driving position, and the excellent forward visibility.

The Spider adds extra sensation thanks to its carbon-composite folding hardtop, powered by eight electric motors. It can be activated from the key fob, or by a centrally mounted switch above your head by the interior light. It takes 11 seconds to open or close, and can do so at speeds up to 31 mph.

An electrochromic glass panel is an option, which can block out 99 per cent of the sun’s rays at another button push, and uses something called “Suspended Particle” technology [LINK] to reduce heat transfer. A small heated rear screen can also be raised or lowered electrically for more air or noise.

Styling alterations on the coupe include glazed sections on the Artura’s buttresses to improve rear visibility. Some aero-thermal trickery involving new ducting keeps the engine cool even with a roof folded away on top of it. A reshaped windscreen surround and small aero flap on its leading edge reduces buffeting in the cabin.

The Artura Spider isn’t the most dramatic-looking supercar, but the body has more nuance the longer you look at it. A process called super-forming [LINK] has helped give its aluminum body panels some appealing curves.

Unsurpassable Flow

Incorporating the hybrid apparatus into a car like this and getting to a 1,457-kilogram (dry) weight is very impressive. The Spider is 62 kg heavier than the coupe, but you’d hardly notice. The Artura Spider is a car with astonishing dynamic attributes, brilliantly responsive in slow corners, beautifully stable on its carbon ceramic brakes—there’s no regen effect here, it’s purely frictional—and sensational on really fast fourth- and fifth-gear sweepers.

You can alter the car’s dynamism across Comfort, Sport, and Track settings via a rocker control on the side of the instrument binnacle. Comfort is the best resolved on most surfaces, Sport a little jiggly, and Track best left for circuit forays.

If you have the room, and the nerve, variable drift control software allows juicy slides. Note that in Track mode, the regen aims to keep the battery at 40 percent. Or you can waft about silently in e-mode, which is good for urban driving or placating the neighbors.

Happily, the Artura’s default setup also happens to be its best—and the presence of mechanical anti-roll bars (as opposed to the 750 S’s hydraulically cross-linked configuration) doesn’t detract from a handling and ride balance that’s extremely well sorted.

An electronically controlled e-diff helps amplify the impression of accuracy and adjustability, and in the dry at least the sense of flow is unsurpassable. The Spider and other Artura v2.0s also get a revised transmission. The eight-speed ’box has a new pre-fill feature that pressurizes the hydraulic fluid in the system with greater accuracy for shift times that are 25 percent faster.

Performance Party

Back to those four powertrain modes: Comfort, Sport, Track and Electric. Comfort combines electric and hybrid in everyday use; Sport and Track use the electric motor for better low-end response and torque in-fill, eliminating lag almost completely. The optional sports exhaust features a “symposer” that amplifies the engine’s sound waves into the cabin via a module sandwiched between the seats.

Needless to say, this is an exceptionally fast car. It’ll do 62 mph in 3.0 seconds, takes 8.4 seconds to hit 124 mph (that’s a tenth slower than the coupe), and 186 mph in 21.6 seconds. Top speed is 205 mph. There’s also a new mode that allows smokey Insta-friendly burn-outs.

The Artura Spider is an intuitive place to spend time, another fine exponent of McLaren’s expertise in packaging. There’s even decent storage space inside. It feels well made, as you’d rightly expect at this price point, although McLaren has previously grappled with quality issues.

The Clubsport seat is standard, and manages to mimic the comfort and movement of a bigger, heavier seat within a notably lighter weight shell. The driving position is excellent, the view ahead and over your shoulder about as good as it gets on a mid-engined supercar. The steering wheel is devoid of any switchgear and feels all the better for it. The main instrument binnacle is fixed to the steering column, so it moves with the wheel. Rocker controls on the sides of the binnacle control the chassis and powertrain modes, and they’re easy to use.

The center console is also minimal, the 8-inch portrait-oriented screen designed to be as simple as possible. It’s the focal point of McLaren’s infotainment and connectivity (MIS II), which has enough processing firepower to deliver smartphone responsiveness. A physical home button/scroll wheel on the side offers welcome tactility, but the display itself sits a touch low.

Apple CarPlay is now standard, of course, and a vertical wireless charging module has been added. The start/stop button is now in papaya orange rather than red. Driving assist (ADAS for short) arrives now too, as per legal requirement, but one button push turns it off. Some people like this stuff, but on a driver’s car such as a McLaren it’s doubly irritating. A five-speaker audio system is standard, a 12-speaker Bowers & Wilkins system available with the “Technology” pack.

The Artura is rated at 58.9 mpg WLTP, thanks to its electric capability, and its 108 g/km CO₂ emissions figure is equally impressive. In the real world, a combined figure of 34 mpg is possible, but we’d expect something in the mid-20s.

Prices start at $273,800 in the US and £221,500 in the UK, and there are three optional trim packages, Performance, TechLux, and Vision, which cost £5,050 on top of the standard price. Get into McLaren’s MSO’s personalization service and all bets are off.

Accused by some as purists in certain key respects, with the Artura Spider now McLaren has proof that it knows how to party.