Car review: McLaren’s Artura Spider powers up with top down

ROQUEBRUNE-CAP-MARTIN, France – McLaren chose to seduce us with the most luscious of settings for the launch of its Artura Spider – the French Riviera, where the backroads are meandering and empty, the scenery spectacular and the early-summer weather just glorious.

Frankly, it need not have tried so hard – because the car is already delectable on its own.

No surprise, because the Artura Spider’s hard-top twin, the Artura Coupe, has been wowing us since its launch in late 2022. Like the Coupe, the Spider’s twin-turbocharged V6 is paired with an electric motor.

But the output for both cars has gone up by 20hp, to 700hp. Those extra horses come from a slight increase in turbo boost, plus fuelling and ignition tweaks.

As no hardware changes are involved, existing Arturas can be remapped for free to match this output. Yes, McLaren will “zhng” (meaning modify in colloquial Hokkien) your car for you.

Like the Coupe, the Artura Spider is a plug-in hybrid which can move stealthily on electric power, travelling up to 33km or up to 130kmh without awakening its V6.

But no one buys a McLaren as an electric runabout. Use that powertrain as intended and the rear-wheel-drive supercar catapults to 100kmh in three seconds, 200kmh in 8.4 seconds (0.1 second slower than the Coupe) and on to an electronically limited 330kmh top speed.

There are several other improvements common to both the Spider and Coupe. 

Thanks to a new feature that pre-pressurises the eight-speed gearbox’s hydraulic fluid to near-engagement point, gear-change times have been slashed by 25 per cent – which seems unfeasible to anyone who has experienced the already near-instantaneous shifts of the “old” Artura.

Minor changes to damper valving and faster-acting damper software further sharpen body control and the suspension’s response to road surface changes, while stiffer engine mounts rein in stray drivetrain movement.

Redesigned brake cooling ducts help regulate temperature to maintain braking performance under repeated hard use.

A new catalyst and resonator enhance the exhaust’s voice, but there is another geeky tweak, in particular, which, more than anything else, highlights McLaren’s obsessive attention to detail.

The conical tips of the twin exhaust pipes have been revised, to reshape the soundwaves emerging from the pipes so that they do not interact with the surrounding pipe housing. The result, McLaren says, is a cleaner, purer exhaust note with a more thrilling high-rev “crescendo”.

The one feature on the Spider that is absent from the Coupe is, of course, the folding roof. The Spider’s carbon-composite hardtop panel has been shaped so that with the top up, it retains the Coupe’s flowing roofline.

Give the command and, in an exquisitely choreographed sequence, the rear engine deck cover lifts, the roof panel rises, slides back and then ducks under the raised rear deck, which then whirrs nonchalantly back into place in a mere 11 seconds.

Eight motors handle this mechanical dance, which the Spider can perform at speeds of up to 50kmh.

Given its need to lift and swallow the hardtop, that rear deck cover differs from the Coupe’s. Its carbon-composite structure contains an elaborate network of ducting to extract hot air from the engine via a large “chimney” outlet, and to channel cool air to the engine and hardtop storage area. 

Unsurprisingly for a company with deep F1 roots, McLaren is lightness-obsessed, as shown by the Artura’s carbon-fibre monocoque tub, the use of ethernet technology to vastly reduce electric cabling, and hybrid componentry that weighs just 130kg.

The Spider weighs only 1,560kg with fluids, easily the lightest convertible in its class and a mere 62kg more than the Coupe, with most of that extra mass coming from the folding roof’s motors.

The cockpit reflects McLaren’s driver-centric ethos. You sit very low but comfortably, hugged firmly but gently in the right places by the bucket seat.

The wheel is handily thin-rimmed, with the Handling and Drivetrain mode toggles within fingertip-reach at the top left and right of the instrument binnacle respectively.

The Spider loses the Coupe’s shallow parcel shelf behind the seats, but there is still a deep front boot large enough for a cabin bag plus a couple more soft items. 

And on those meandering Provencal roads, the Artura Spider thrills and delights. With 700hp, blinding straight-line pace is a given, but the savagery of its delivery still startles – the engine zings in an instant to its 8,500rpm redline.  

Even at high speeds, there is little wind buffeting with the roof down. And what a boon it is to have the engine’s note within such close earshot – its low-rev throaty sound turning harder-edged as it approaches its top-end.

Still, it never turns as feral as the 750S’ V8. In the low to mid-range it can be a touch muted with the roof up, although this can be remedied somewhat by lowering a retractable vertical glass screen between the cabin and the rear deck.

For those craving more aural presence, there is an optional sports exhaust with a device called a “sound symposer”, which taps the exhaust sound from the rear muffler and pipes it to the cabin.

The way the car dances through slow bends and whips through fast ones is extraordinary.

The steering – which uniquely remains hydraulically assisted for analogue feedback when every other marque has moved to electric assistance – is a lovely thing. Pin-sharp and wonderfully linear, it eggs you to push harder and lean on the chassis and lets you sense acutely, through the wheel, the ebb and flow of the car’s grip and balance. 

The car even rides well, gliding over the occasionally patchy French backroads, provided the Handling mode is in Comfort or Sport, and not the most extreme Track setting.

You can sense the suspension’s underlying tautness, but critically, it also retains an inherent suppleness to maintain traction on uneven corner exits and to avoid being unsettled by mid-bend bumps.

Far from being a raw, hardcore device, the Artura is that even rarer thing – a daily-driver supercar.

With the Artura Spider, McLaren has somehow improved on an already brilliant thing. There was no need to fly us to the south of France to convince us.

Overheard at the Artura Spider launch

McLaren Artura Spider

Price: $1,348,000 without certificate of entitlement
Engine: 2,993cc twin-turbocharged V6 with 95hp axial flux motor and 7.4kWh battery
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch with paddle shift
Power: 700hp at 7,500rpm
Torque: 720Nm at 2,250-7,000rpm
0-100kmh: 3 seconds
Top speed: 330kmh
Fuel consumption: 4.8 litres/100km
Agent: McLaren Singapore