And that's because, like the Alfa we saw earlier,
this car was designed to be as fat as Iggy Pop.
Inside, there's no glove box and no carpets.
The glass is just 3.5 millimetres thick,
1.5 millimetres thinner than the glass in normal cars,
except in the back windows... where there's no glass at all.
No lacquer is added to carbon-fibre trim to save 1.5kg.
The whole chassis weighs less than James May.
The trimmings are titanium and the body is made from just five panels,
which means less glue and fewer bolts are needed to hold it all together.
All of this means that, despite the bank of batteries
and the fact it has two engines,
this car weighs less than a Vauxhall Astra.
That, of course, makes it economical.
And fast.
Really fast.
Mind-blowingly fast.
Oh, my God!
The speed, in fact, is the main reason I brought this car to Belgium,
because Belgium is home to this place...
Spa, the longest, wildest racetrack on the F1 calendar.
How can they make something go this fast?
Okay, let me just slow it down while I explain what's going on here.
The electric motor and the big V8 generator are working together,
so that I have at my disposal 903 brake horsepower.
Obviously, I've driven a Bugatti Veyron that has more than that...
but a Bugatti Veyron...
it has four-wheel drive and it weighs more than most mountains.
This is rear-wheel drive and the only significant weight comes from
the air passing over the body.
All right, Eau Rouge.
Flat in a Formula 1 car. Not flat in this.
Oh, they should have called this the Widow-maker!
The throttle is a hyperspace button.
Step on it... and you're gone.
And yet, somehow, even in this appalling weather,
it got round all of the corners without crashing once.
So, how?
Well, that's partly because it's made of stuff from the future.
And partly because it's clever.
It adapts. It moves around to suit its environment.
As the speed climbs, the rear wing rises to generate more downforce,
but as you go past 156 miles an hour, it starts to go back down a little bit,
otherwise the weight of the air passing over it
would be so enormous it would break the suspension.
Then you have the exhaust, which works with the rear diffuser
to generate an area of low pressure into which the back of the car is sucked.
The wheels are made from military-grade aluminium.
The brake discs from a material that's only ever been used
in the Arianespace programme.
And they're coated with something called silicon carbide.
Apparently it's the hardest substance known to man.
Apart from dried Weetabix, obviously.
And then, the whole thing sits on four tyres
that were designed and made by Pirelli.
All of this means you really have the confidence to open it up.
This thing goes from nought to 160 miles an hour
faster than a Golf goes from nought to 60.
130, 140, 150,
160, 170, 180, 190...
Bloody hellfire!
And as you hurtle round in a puddle of your own faeces,
girning like an infant, the car is working on ways of going even faster.
Let me give you an example.
The electric motor is used to fill in the little gaps
when the petrol engine isn't working at its best,
like, for example, during gear changes
or while the massive turbos are spooling up.
And what I find hysterical about that is that McLaren
has taken this hybrid technology,
which is designed to reduce the impact of the internal combustion engine
and is using it to increase the impact.
That's like weaponising a wind farm.
Or buying the Rainbow Warrior and turning it into an oil tanker.
For years, cars have all been basically the same, but this really isn't.
It's a game-changer, A genuinely new chapter in the history of motoring.
In a town, it's as eco friendly as a health-food shop.
On a motorway, it's comfortable
and produces no more carbon dioxide than a family saloon.
And on a track, it can rip a hole through time.
And it's all been achieved using something that's been around for centuries,
brilliant British engineering.
You could argue that it doesn't have the passion or the flair of a Ferrari
and I'd probably agree with you.
But look at it this way.
It was passion and flair that built the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
and it was British engineering
that built the plumb-dead-straight Westminster Abbey.