McLaren for Valentine's Day

Just when you thought you had that perfect Valentines gift (perhaps a hand-written poem and a home-made pavlova in the shape of a love-heart) a filthy-rich (but clearly very thoughtful) person blows you out of the water dropping close to half a million clams on a car for their loved one!

Yep, an individual has personalised a McLaren 570S Spider with Vermillion red paint as a Valentine’s Day gift, reducing millions of romantic gifts across the world today (February 14) to insignificance in one fell swoop.

Whether you view Valentine’s Days a commercial exploitation of emotion or a genuine day of love, this is a stultifying gesture.

Priced from $435,750 in Australia, this seductive McLaren 570S Spider has the custom exterior paint along with Apex Red and Jet Black Nappa leather inside. Throw in Carbon Black Alcantara trim, Apex Red leather steering wheel elements and Indian Red seatbelts, not to mention Pirelli P Zero tyres with red pin-stripes and red brake calipers, and this one-off McLaren's price would rise very close to – if not over – $500,000.

Don't assume the McLaren Valentine's Day gift was a bloke buying a car for his sheila. It could very well be the other way round. That rules out Barnaby Joyce, then.

Powered by a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8, the McLaren 570S Spider belts out 419kW and 600Nm. That's enough poke to propel the rear-drive, seven-speed automatic drop top 100km/h in just 3.2secs.

The power-folding fabric roof takes 15 seconds to open or close, and can be done so on the move, up to 40km/h. It has a top speed of 328km/h with the roof on, and 315km/h with the roof off.