Mclaren Speedtail Vs. GMA T.50 Vs. McLaren F1

The Mclaren Speedtail, long after it was revealed at the Geneva Motor Show, finally proved the point it was built for. It got tested for the top speed runs at the Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. Interestingly, this was the same venue where the Hennessey Venom GT was tested as well. The course used was a 3.5-mile runway that is usually used to land space shuttles from NASA's space programs. Astoundingly, the McLaren Speedtail was faster than what the shuttle (220mph) ever reached, at 250mph. The Speedtail beats the 240.1 mph record set by Gordon Murray designed McLaren F1. 

Talking about what McLaren got famous for, the F1, it still retains the title of being the fastest naturally-aspirated car in the world. And it held the title for the fastest car in the world for a whole decade, only to be surpassed by the Koenigsegg CCR and then Buggati Veyron, a year later. And the race to trump the top speed has been on since. McLaren F1 is what McLaren calls the spiritual ancestor to the Speedtail. We stand confused because Gordon Murray just touted his T.50 as the spiritual successor to it. The top trumps, especially between the Speedtail and T.50, would be really interesting. We are still waiting for the latter to hit the road.

 “The Speedtail is a truly extraordinary car that epitomizes McLaren’s pioneering spirit and perfectly illustrates our determination to continue to set new benchmarks for supercar and hypercar performance.” Mike Flewitt, CEO, McLaren Automotive 

Officially, this is the fastest McLaren to date. Hitting a 250mph mark with over 30 test runs and it being every time able to touch the mark makes it look like it does the run at utter ease. The “XP2” prototype was also tested in Idiada, Spain and Papenburg, Germany. The car is already getting build at the McLaren Production Centre in Woking, UK and the deliveries would start in February 2020. 

McLaren Speedtail Vs. McLaren F1 Vs. Gordon Murray T.50

Let’s pitch these three cars because of the relevance they have with each other. All have a three-seat layout and all of them are meant to demolish speed records. The newer two cars, the T.50, and the Speedtail are calling themselves a “spiritual” successor to the legendary F1. If this was the decade of hybrid supercars, the coming decade might be of the hybrid supercars going very fast.

The Mclaren Speedtail is equipped with an uprated 4.0L M840T V8 twin-turbocharged engine which is closely related to the 720S. It is mated to an electric motor that works in a parallel hybrid configuration with its motor, cumulatively producing 1035hp and 848 pound-feet of torques. It is able to do 0-186mph in 12.8 seconds. This makes it notoriously close to the Koenigsegg One:1’s time of 11.9 seconds. The car at 3153 pounds is kind of heavy when you take into account all the three vehicles. 

Gordon Murray’s T.50 has a naturally aspirated 3.9L Cosworth sourced engine making 650hp and 332 pound-feet of torque. This is mildly helped by a 30hp boost from its own starter motor in a 3-minute burst. The ideology of its design is to create the least drag possible, with no spoilers at all. Downforce duties are handled by an electric fan that creates low pressure underneath the car. You can read about it here. The car is super light at 2160 pounds which is around 400 pounds lesser than the F1. Two completely different principles to design a high-speed hybrid car. Let’s wait for the T.50 to be out next year and hence its acceleration time and top speed. Oh, we are excited! 

“It’s fitting that the Speedtail’s high-speed test program concluded with multiple maximum-speed runs at a location so strongly associated with pushing the boundaries of extreme performance and engineering excellence,” -McLaren Automotive CEO, Mike Flewitt

Coming back to the talk of the hour, the Speedtail, it did achieve a remarkable feat. McLaren suggests it as the pinnacle of their Ultimate series after McLaren P1 and F1. There would be only 106 examples ever made and the deliveries would start from February 2020. 

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T.50: Gordon Murray's iteration of the Legendary Mclaren F1