McLaren GT lands in Australia

McLaren’s Australian distributor has taken the wraps of the new McLaren GT on local turf, confirming it will be priced from $399,995 plus on-road costs.

Positioned as the British supercar-maker’s do-it-all variant, the new McLaren GT squeezes between the 570S ($395,000) and the 570GT ($415,000) on price, but brings an entirely different skillset to the fold.

“The mission of this car is to bring a new buyer into the brand, perhaps [owners of] more lifestyle cars who want to use the car on a more regular basis,” McLaren’s global marketing boss, Jamie Corstorphine, tells carsales.com.au.

“The focus is on refinement, usability and luggage space.”

First customer deliveries of the McLaren GT, which will be launched in Europe later this week, will land in Australia from the fourth quarter of 2019.

The newcomer purportedly combines “competition levels of performance and continent-crossing capability” and is the fourth variant in the British car-maker’s highly touted Track25 business plan.

The GT’s 4.7-metre body wraps around a familiar carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, but differentiating it are unique engine mounts that offer half the stiffness of the car-maker’s track-focussed 600LT, along with longer front and rear overhangs.

Bolstering its everyday amenity, the McLaren GT’s 10-degree front approach and 13-degree rear departure angles are said to be more amenable to driveway entrances than most McLarens, as is its 110mm ground clearance (130mm with vehicle lift).

The GT’s on-road skillset is owed to a new suspension system that uses sensors to ‘read’ the road ahead. The lightweight aluminium, double wishbone design is paired with hydraulic dampers to deliver Proactive Damping Control across three set parameters – Comfort, Sport and Track.

Elsewhere, the GT employs McLaren’s hydraulic steering system. McLaren says engineers were able to develop a single software map across the different driving modes.

The newcomer promises some semblance of practicality courtesy of a 150-litre front storage area and 420-litre luggage space below a front-hinged, full-length glazed tailgate at the rear.

Some would say the GT tones down the styling of recent McLarens, even though it maintains dihedral doors and a classic silhouette.

At the GT’s heart is McLaren’s ubiquitous 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, promising 456kW and 603Nm, mated to a seven-speed automatic transmission.

Apportioning drive solely to the rear wheels, the GT offers a claimed 0-100km/h time of 3.2 seconds, 0-200km/h in 9.0 seconds and top speed of 326km/h. It also promises “superior exhaust sound quality … true of Grand Tourer”.

Inside, the two-seater McLaren GT is replete with Nappa leather as standard throughout, and features McLaren’s most sophisticated infotainment system to-date. A 7.0-inch touch-screen houses climate control functions, sat-nav, Bluetooth, media streaming and voice activation.

Mated to the central screen is a 12.3-inch TFT digital display in the instrument cluster.