i bloody wish it ended up in a scrap heap. 106 cars is supposed to mean 106 cars not 106 cars and 25 prototypes...
I agree. They totally undermine the 106 number with all these extra XP cars. I”m not aware of another manufacturer doing this, and certainly not publicizing it if they do, but McLaren has been doing it for years. Next limited car please just tell us the REAL number of cars you’re going to sell and we can say ours is 1 of 122 or 126 or whatever the REAL number is instead of making your customers into liars on your behalf. 118, 124 or even 132 is still super rare. Even if you’re not sure at the outset, please tell us the final, number in the end. When I’ve been asked I tell people they probably made roughly 120 of these in total. It is frustrating when you own a rare car like this to not have an accurate number.
But I LOVE the car. Also to contrast Mikey’s comment: we’ve had 2 570 models and 2 720 models and put LOTS of miles of each of those cars and they’ve all been perfect. Speedtail has also been trouble free except for the latch to one of the little storage flaps under the dash which I broke by pushing it too hard but it was way too flimsy to begin with. It was a $3 part that should have been more sturdy. They just sent me the latch and we replaced it ourselves.
Now about the Speedtail driving experience…
I’ve now driven over 540 miles in my Speedtail. This week I took it for a 2.5 hour (well over 100 miles) drive and it was absolutely glorious. At one point I thought to myself “I wonder what other drivers think when they see this car go by?” It’s likely that very, very few who see the car go by in my area have ever even seen one before or even know what it is.
Another thing that occurred to me after the first hour in the car was how comfortable the car is (with just a driver and no passengers) for longer drives like that. I could easily have driven another hour or two, stopped for fuel, and then driven some more. My goal, once I realized I was 20 miles away from it, was to hit 500 miles on the odometer, but once I did I still didn’t want to stop and drove another 40+ miles before getting home. I wouldn’t want to sit in one of the passenger seats for a multi hour drive but I’d be totally OK driving - especially if it involved some nice twisty mountain roads which are only about 3 hours from from my house so a weekend trip to the mountains is definitely in the works now.
It’s super comfortable, the steering and power are just incredible, it feels amazing in the twisties and just eats up the straights. The interior feels luxurious, without being over-done, and the stereo is superb. Forward visibility, because you sit in the center, is amazing. Big accelerations in the. Speedtail are just insanely fun too - like a bigger, more civilized, version of the P1. It is nowhere near as loud as the P1 inside but you do still get some great engine sounds in the cockpit when you press down hard on the accelerator. The Speedtail has this beautiful gliding sensation, like no other far I’ve driven, but when you tell it you want to be more sporty, it comes alive and you’re instantly dealing with huge, but very controllable, accelerations. Sometime when I’m driving my Taycan I’ll do an insane acceleration from a stop sign just because I can and it’s so effortless and break-taking - the same goes for the Speedtail but with the Speedtail you get a concert of engine and induction and turbo and electric noises and it is all so glorious!
Also despite all the glass around you it’s actually one of my favorite cars to drive when it’s too hot outside for a top-down car. The excellent AC in the Speedtail keeps the cabin very comfortable and you can darken the upper windows enough to keep the sun at bay while still feeling a sense of openness. Far better than the P1 or Senna in that respect but also better than many regular cars. On the hottest days of the year, even with all the glass (electrochromic) roof panels, you can still, and very quickly, make the cabin much colder than you’d need it to be to be comfortable. The one time I needed it in the past the heat also was perfect. I believe the “feels like” temperature when I did my 100+ miles this week was over 100 degrees for most of the drive and it was never anything but cool and comfortable inside the cabin with a dual symphony of the excellent B&W stereo when I wasn’t pushing hard and the equally excellent McLaren Speedtail engine when I was. Oh, and one Bluetooth phone call came in during the drive that also worked perfectly too. As it does sometimes on these super hot days, it rained decently hard for about 15 minutes of the drive, and that didn’t phase the car either.
I just love this car!!
My only beef with the Speedtail is there’s no rear view display. You have view the rear view camera on the dash at speeds up to 19 mph but then it goes away. I’m confident they will fix that in a future update.
