The McLaren 650S is the Mclaren that answered a simple question — how much car can this badge carry? — with 650 PS at 7,250 rpm from 3799 cc twin-turbocharged M838T V8. It was built from 2014 to 2017, as electrification stopped being an experiment and the crossover took every market. Its designer of record is Frank Stephenson.
How it came about
The McLaren 650S is a British sports car designed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer McLaren Automotive. It was announced in February 2014 as a new model, but based on the existing MP4-12C with 25% new parts, and was formally unveiled at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show.
The 650S shares the MP4-12C's carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer chassis, and is powered by the same 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged McLaren M838T V8 engine, but is now rated at 650 PS (478 kW; 641 hp) and 500 lb⋅ft (678 N⋅m) of torque. Power is transmitted to the wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch Seamless-Shift gearbox (SSG) provided by Graziano Trasmissioni.
The hardware
Under the skin sits 3799 cc twin-turbocharged M838T V8; it is rated at 650 PS at 7,250 rpm. Kerb weight is 3,148 lb. Power-to-weight lands near 206 horsepower per tonne, which is quick by any era's standard, the kind of figure a hot hatch or a sports saloon posts. The gearbox is a 7-speed Graziano SSG dual-clutch. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 105.1 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Where it sits in Mclaren's history is not in doubt: the McLaren 12C came before it; the McLaren 720S followed it; it was built at Woking, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Ferrari 488, the Lamborghini Aventador, the BMW i8. Its Mclaren stablemates include the McLaren M15 and the McLaren M16.