so you're looking for a hardtop convertible and man your tech stocks
have really had a go of it this year so your budget is quarter million dollars
give or take but you really want something different
hmm dihedral doors a car just ain't a car without these
fortunately the intrepid reporters at cars calm are your faithful research
companions we've been testing a mclaren 570s Spider this week a car that's
roughly in that price range and definitely has those doors oh the
lengths we go for crucial consumer research so what exactly is the 570s
Spider well indulge me in a little bit of history if you will the McLaren Group
is an independent privately held British company it's got several arms McLaren
racing probably the best-known since it dabbles just a wee bit in Formula one
motor sports but a separate and perhaps more revenue generating arm actually
builds street-legal exotic cars this arm has been
responsible through the years for machines like the McLaren f1 in the
1990s and the SLR McLaren in the 2000 in partnership with mercedes-benz now this
was relaunched as McLaren Automotive in 2010 and it gave us cars like the
mp4-12c and the p1 currently the whole lineup is kind of branched into three
new cars here the entry-level Sport Series mid-level Super Series and very
hard to find ultimate series between those three you have seven different
variants of cars that you can get in the u.s. that are new or upcoming which
brings us to the 570s Spider now this is one of the later additions to the sports
series as a hardtop convertible but the sports series itself actually goes all
the way back to the 2016 model year with the introduction of the 570s coupe or if
you really want to sound highfalutin the coupe a got it good so how exactly is
the 570s Spider well McLaren characterizes its entire
sports series as sort of supercars that are made for everyday usability the 570s
Spider is a daily driver like the original Picasso and somebody's house is
just some regular artwork over the mantel I guess I mean look at it it's
absolutely breathtaking we had it over the week of Halloween
that's fair to say the trick-or-treaters showing up in my driveway I definitely
thought this was a sweeter treat than the cheap off-brand candy I would
handing out now that's not a very high bar I know but that was without even
opening the doors you do that and people lose their the power roof is really the
cherry on top because the car doesn't look like a convertible it lowers and
raises in about 16 seconds by our timer and it works at speeds up to 25 miles
per hour that's rare for a hardtop convertible as many of the ones we
tested don't really work once you start moving you'll move quickly a mid-mounted
twin-turbo 3.8 liter v8 engine routes 562 horsepower to the rear wheels
through a 7-speed automatic seamless shift gearbox now in its normal driving
modes that gearbox isn't terribly downshift happy it kind of prefers to
let you a loaf along between 2,000 and 3,000 rpm but honestly with 443 pounds
feet of torque there's plenty of power even then punch it hard or activate the
drivetrain sporty or modes and you'll soon reach the upper echelons of the
tachometer here the turbos whooshing at peak boost and experience simply
breathtaking acceleration remember this is a carbon fiber chassis in this
vehicle only weighs about as much as a Honda Accord McLaren says the 570s
spider is only a hundred and one pounds heavier than the 570s
coupe and carries the same 3.1 second zero to 60 times now we haven't been to
a drag strip to test that time but our experience this week driving it makes it
seem like an entirely believable number and it's a smidge quicker even than the
original v12 McLaren f1 now we've piloted the 570s coupe on race
tracks but not the spider still our on road handling loop suggested plenty of
potential with quick direct ratio steering simply no understeer even in
maneuvers that really should induce it and virtually no body roll even with the
adaptive shock absorbers dialed over to the cushiest settings speaking of shock
absorbers those have three settings your normal sport and track there's actually
quite a bit of ride quality difference between those three modes which is
distinctive for this car because for all the virtual links spilled over them
adjustable shock absorbers and sports cars often just don't really have that
much difference between their normal modes and maybe there are sporting their
modes kudos to McLaren for really kind of dialing up the differences here and
in normal mode honestly shock absorption and overall isolation not very bad at
all for what this is of course it wouldn't be a
high-performance exotic car if it didn't have its share of warts and our test
vehicle has a few from lots of squeaking - parking sensors that false-alarm a lot
- a glitchy passenger side Express up window function there's also a few kind
of inherent annoyances things like a backup camera that's in the center
screen in front of the steering wheel instead of over in the touchscreen in
the centre stack right there it kind of gets obscured when you're turning the
wheel to the center touchscreen that doesn't really look very good when
you're looking through polarized sunglasses but to dwell on those things
really would kind of be to miss the point about the 570s
spider this car belongs on a racetrack maybe carving up Canyon roads or heading
out for a night on the town and our few days with it definitely suggests that it
would do all of those things very very well just don't call these scissor doors
dihedral doors is technically the accurate term and it also has just kind
of the right amount of snootiness