McLaren 720S Hire Sydney: Review, Specs and What It Is Really Like

The 720S is what McLaren did next after the 650S, and the answer was a new carbon tub, a bigger engine and a body that lets the driver see the road instead of guessing at it. It is one of the quickest cars a private driver can legally put on a Sydney road, and this page is the plain account of what that pace is like to live with for a weekend. It is confirmed by request rather than sitting on a lot, so send the dates first and we will tell you honestly whether we can put one in front of you.

★★★★★ Rated 5.0 from 1,431 reviews across Drive Tribe

Specifications

Every line on that table is bigger than the equivalent line for the McLaren 650S, and the gap
is not small. The 650S makes 478kW and reaches 100km/h in 3.0 seconds; the 720S adds 52kW, a
second-generation carbon structure and a tenth of a second, and it manages that while being easier
to see out of and easier to climb into. That is the short version of why the car exists.

What It Is Actually Like in Sydney

How it relates to the 650S

McLaren built the 650S on the tub and the engine it launched with in 2011, and refined both
until the car was very quick and very trustworthy. The 720S was the first clean-sheet car of the
company's modern era. The carbon tub grew upward into the roof structure, which is what the word
Monocage describes, the windscreen pillars thinned out, the engine went from 3.8 to 4.0 litres with
new turbochargers, and the suspension moved to the second generation of the hydraulically linked
system that does away with conventional anti-roll bars. The 650S remains a superb thing to drive
and nothing here is meant to talk anyone out of one. The 720S is simply the next chapter, and a
reader who has already driven the 650S will recognise it within a kilometre as the same idea with
more of everything.

The acceleration is in a different category

The manufacturer's figure is 2.9 seconds to 100km/h, with 770Nm from a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8
driving the rear wheels only. The figure that matters more in practice is what happens between
60km/h and the limit on an on-ramp. There is nothing in the Sydney speed range where this engine
feels as though it is working. Joining the M1 northbound at Wahroonga, the merge is finished before
the indicator has cancelled, and from there the car is idling along in a high gear. The
turbochargers respond sooner than the 650S's and the delivery is more even, so the surge arrives
earlier and keeps arriving. It is the kind of pace that asks for restraint rather than skill,
because there is no public road in New South Wales where the full extent of it can be used.

The gearbox is a seven-speed dual-clutch and it is the part of the car people underestimate.
Left in automatic it is smooth enough for a Woollahra school run. In manual, the paddles are a
single rocker that pivots behind the wheel, so pulling one side pushes the other, and it shifts as
hard as you ask. It takes two corners to get used to and then feels like the only sensible design.

You can see out of it, which changes everything in town

Most mid-engined cars are difficult in a city because the driver cannot see the corners. The
720S has glazed sections in the roof pillars and a low, narrow dashboard, and the effect is that
you sit in a glasshouse. Reversing into a space in Double Bay or threading down the ramp of a
shopping-centre car park is a normal task rather than an act of faith. That single quality is why
the car is more usable across a weekend than the shape suggests, and it is one of the two things a
650S driver notices first. The other is the dihedral doors, which swing up and forward and take
less width beside the car than a conventional door on a coupe this wide.

The ride is the surprise

Supercars are assumed to be stiff, and most of them are. The 720S runs linked hydraulic
suspension, where fluid lines between the dampers do the job anti-roll bars normally do, and the
effect on a Sydney road is that the car breathes over the broken bitumen of Parramatta Road and
the expansion joints on the Anzac Bridge rather than crashing across them. In Comfort mode it is
more supple than several four-door performance sedans. That matters over a whole weekend, because
the fatigue that comes from a rigid car after 300km is what turns a good booking into a long one.
Switch to Sport or Track on the climb up Galston Gorge and the same suspension firms itself
without the ride ever becoming punishing.

The cabin is simpler than the badge implies. The instrument screen folds down into a thin strip
of essentials in Track mode, the centre screen is portrait and handles navigation and climate, and
everything else is a switch. There is no ambient-lighting menu and no cup-holder theatre. Luggage
lives under the bonnet in a space that takes two soft weekend bags, and the coupe has a shelf
behind the seats that takes a jacket and not much else.

Coupe or Spider

The Spider carries a folding hard top that stows in about eleven seconds and can be operated on
the move at moderate speed. Because the tub was designed with the open car in mind, the Spider
gives away nothing meaningful in stiffness and very little in weight, so the choice is about
whether you want the roof off on a Palm Beach run rather than whether the car will drive
differently. The coupe has a cleaner profile and a small glazed panel behind the seats. If you are
asking for a specific body when you send your dates, say which; if you are not fussed, tell us
that too, because it widens what we can confirm.

Things You Should Know

The sill, the doors and the driveway

Getting in means stepping over a wide carbon sill and lowering yourself into a seat that sits
close to the floor. It is easier than a Huracan, because the door takes part of the roof with it
when it opens, but it is not graceful the first time, and a passenger in a fitted dress will want
one practice run in the driveway before the evening. The doors also need clearance above the car,
which rules out some low-ceilinged garages, so measure before you assume.

The nose is low. A steep driveway crossover in the eastern suburbs, a shopping-centre speed hump
or a car-park ramp all need to be taken at an angle and at walking pace. The front lift, where
fitted, raises the nose by a useful amount and should be used every time rather than when you
remember.

Rear-wheel drive, 530kW and a wet Sydney road

This is the paragraph that matters most. The Huracan sends drive to all four wheels; the 720S
sends 770Nm to the rear tyres only. In the dry the traction and stability systems are excellent
and the car is docile at any legal speed. In the rain, on the painted lines at a set of traffic
lights or on the smooth concrete of the Cross City Tunnel, the throttle deserves respect in a way
an all-wheel-drive car does not demand. Leave the systems on, keep the drive mode in its softest
setting when the road is wet, and treat the first ten minutes of any drive as the time to learn
how the car answers the pedal. Nobody who does that has a problem. The people who do are the ones
who assume the electronics will absorb a big throttle input on a wet roundabout.

What it costs to run for a weekend

The car takes 98-octane fuel and uses a great deal of it when it is driven the way the engine
invites. The tyres are wide, expensive and specific, and a kerbed rim on a car this low is the
single most common way a bond gets touched. Park it with the wheels straight, use the cameras, and
keep it away from the high kerbs in the older streets of the inner west. Interstate travel needs
written approval on the booking so the kilometre allowance and the roadside cover are set for the
distance before you leave, and track or circuit use is not permitted under any circumstances.

Who Books This Car

People who have driven the 650S and want to know what the next one feels like. Milestone
birthdays where the present is the drive rather than the car in the photographs. A Saturday on
Bells Line of Road and a Sunday on the Old Pacific Highway with somebody who understands what
they are sitting in. Occasionally a corporate incentive where one person gets the day of their
life rather than twenty people getting a dinner.

It is priced from $2,900 a day, which sits above the Huracan and the 650S and reflects both
the pace and the difficulty of securing one for a particular weekend. The car is confirmed by
request: send the dates, tell us coupe or Spider if it matters, and we come back with a straight
answer before anything is charged. If we cannot secure a 720S, the 650S is the honest fallback and
we will say so rather than let the request sit.