McLaren 750S the last of its non-electrified V8 breed

The 2023 McLaren 750S will be the last of its kind, with company officials foreshadowing a move to hybridisation for all new production models moving forward.

Launched internationally this week, the 750S takes McLaren’s Super Series range to stratospheric new heights and is claimed to deliver the best power-to-weight ratio of any series-production McLaren to date, bettering the 720S it replaces in every tangible measure.

With 552kW and 800Nm on offer, the 750S also extracts the most performance from McLaren’s venerable 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine this side of the limited-production 765LT.

McLaren chief technical officer Charles Sanderson conceded the 750S will likely mark the final time a production V8 does without electrification at McLaren.

“I’ll never commit to it formally, but I think it’s likely to be the last non-electrified series-production V8 just around the regulations globally in respect to internal combustion,” he said.

“We would love to [keep it going] because there’s something special about internal combustion and there’s a market for it. We enjoy it and I think the customers love it.”

McLaren’s move to hybridisation parallels with rivals including Ferrari, with its highly-acclaimed 296 GTB supercar.

Sanderson hinted that all options remained on the table for future powertrain development, as long as they complied with tightening emissions standards.

At present, the global carbon credits earned by the new Artura, which has a petrol-electric V6 hybrid powertrain, offset any penalties wrought by the 750S, Sanderson said.

“There’s huge advantages out of hybridisation and that’s why we’ve done it with the P1 [hybrid hypercar] 10 years ago and more recently the Artura,” said Sanderson.

“The 750S is just a very pure experience of internal combustion and in my opinion one of the best interpretations of it. If not the best.

“We’re quite clear on exploring every powertrain option, and we’re really trying to find what engages drivers.”

Even with the extra weight of hybridisation, McLaren says it remains committed to its less-is-more engineering ethos.

“On every powertrain you can have different characteristics that are enjoyable and you can leverage. Hybridised vehicles are generally heavier, so you give up something, which is generally mass, in order to get something, which is generally engine response and a really wonderfully shaped torque curve,” Sanderson said.

“I think there’s a big benefit coming from hybridisations, but there’s also a real joy that you get out of something as light and live as a 750.”

Not that McLaren is walking away from ICE powertrains anytime soon.

In a potential boon for fans of internal combustion, the company’s global communications director Piers Scott suggested different powertrain options would help differentiate certain models within the British car-maker’s range.

“If there was one criticism that we faced in the previous generation it was that there wasn’t enough variation in the recipe. Whereas now we’ve got clear, defined production differentiation,” he said.

Sanderson, an expat Aussie from Melbourne, rejoined McLaren after stints with Bosch and Rivian. He joined the new 750S project as it neared its completion and helped finalise tuning on items including throttle mapping.

“All of the hardware decisions were made when I rejoined McLaren, and all the validations had been made. All that was left was tuning of various aspects of the car and we did small changes around that,” Sanderson said.

“Ultimately, the majority of this car was designed before my time, but it is an evolution of the 720S that I was lead dynamics [engineer] for.

“It’s better in every possible way that I could have imagined. Honestly, I thought we did a pretty sweet job in the 720S, but coming back to the 750 it’s better.”

Join the conversation at 

our Facebook page

Or email us at 

editor@carsales.com.au