CES 2016: McLaren ditches instruments, mirrors

It's all well and good to have a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 that smashes out 497kW of power in a car that rips to 100km/h in just 2.9 seconds, but times are changing and cool kids don't care for tyre smoke anymore.

They want technology and they want it now, which is why almost every car manufacturer had an exhibit at the world's largest Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week – including McLaren.

Last night's press release for the JVCKenwood Concept, based on the McLaren 675LT, makes no mention of how ridiculously fast it is (330km/h, for the record) or how fast it can lap the Nurburgring.

No, it's all about the interior, which has been custom made with a little help from JVCKenwood's Japan-based team.

A quick glance at the photo of the cabin shows it has no instrument panel where the speedo and rev meters would normally be, and virtually all controls have been deleted. That's because it uses an advanced head-up display system to project all necessary info onto the windshield.

And soon, this technology will make the leap to augmented reality, covering the entire windshield with 3D visuals such as satellite-navigation, safety information and more.

All the controls for the 675LT JVCKenwood Concept are condensed onto the videogame-like steering wheel, which has been borrowed from the McLaren P1 hypercar and heavily modified to allow the driver to fiddle with, well, everything.

The driver can adjust the aviation-inspired head-up display's position (perfect for shorter/taller millionaires) via the steering wheel and McLaren says this is a safer system than looking at regular instruments near the steering wheel because drivers' eyes can remain on the road.

Another tech upgrade for this special Macca are the mirrors – or rather their lack thereof. The car features tiny twin wing cameras replacing the side mirrors, which McLaren says "reduce weight and drag resistance, while also aiding downforce at high speed".

There's also a third central rear camera and, although all three can work separately, they can also be daisy-chained to deliver a super-wide field of view that virtually eliminates blind spots.

McLaren and JVCKenwood have also added loads of fancy-pants materials to the cabin to make it look and feel plush. This includes "a new Geometric Black Technical Fabric with a waxy grained finish to prevent reflections" that is layered around the area in front the driver. Sensible and sexy?

It seems that while on-road performance will continue to be a crucial part of the next generation of hypercars, we're seeing an accelerating shift towards ultra-high-tech gadgets for the world's most expensive dream cars.