BRAND NEW McLaren ARRIVES at The Shmuseum!

There is about to be a car right here that you have never seen before, in fact nobody has ever seen before. Hi guys I'm Shmee, hello and welcome back to the channel where I cannot emphasize how cool this is that a manufacturer is entrusting me with bringing a brand new model right here to the Shmuseum to take a first look and share with you. This is a car that prior to today when we're sharing this video has not even been revealed to the world. You might have been able to guess it was coming but we're going to be able to take a full look around, go through all of the details from right here at my garage. Over the years I have been incredibly lucky to own a number of McLarens and my 675LT Spyder is well and truly a permanent member of the collection for all of the memories and everything that really led up to this because I bought my first McLaren over a decade ago back in early 2014. I introduced the MP4-12C directly from the McLaren Technology Centre, filming the car under H-Block and MTC in Woking, England, wrapped already in Shmee blue but a car that really elevated beyond anything that I had owned up to that point. The likes of my Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster that I still own now and the Audi R8 V10 Spyder that I had had between. It was a car that integrated so much very clever Formula One-derived technology like a carbon fibre monocoque, like pre-cog with the rocker paddles for the seven-speed SSG DCT gearbox, also the likes of brake steer by torque vectoring and I loved all of the clever stuff that McLaren had brought into a road car and a company that was really in its infancy. The 12C was their first series production road car and if you remember at the time it competed with the likes of the Ferrari 458 Italia and Lamborghini Gallardo. It was so far ahead in terms of performance, in terms of tech, in terms of what it offered and I loved that year of ownership, the different events, experiences, road trips, doing tons of miles with it. So eventually I upgraded it to the McLaren 650S Spyder. I literally unwrapped the Christmas present of my bright Mantis Green 650S convertible, my first full open top supercar experience. The R8 V10 had been epic but this was on a different level. From there I then progressed into the 675LT Coupe which of course was fantastic in cerulean blue but eventually swapped that out into the 675LT Spyder. Now all of these are P11 platform cars but the two convertible McLarens are easily the standout in terms of the driving experience. I've been lucky as well to own for five years until recently the McLaren Senna also but when it comes to enjoyment on the road there is something that has to be said about driving a brand new Spyder. Which brings us to the relevance of today and what's about to be here. The McLaren Artura Spyder. I took a first look at the McLaren Artura at the McLaren Technology Centre back in April 2021. That car in flux green was really a next step on in technology with the hybrid V6 powertrain but the Spyder features a ton of new upgrades and improvements and things to take a look at that have been bespoke for this specific car. It's actually about to be delivered here to the Schmuseum and I need to say thank you in advance to McLaren for this opportunity. How cool is this that I'm about to have a car right here that at the point we're filming this hasn't even been revealed to the public and it's going to be here in a moment. So let's do this let's take a first look at the new McLaren Artura Spyder. Fast forward and some things have changed in the barn and of course we have the ESG switchable glass for the magic reveal of what awaits us. Press the button and boom the new McLaren Artura Spyder. Let's come and take a look at the open top version of McLaren's hybrid V6 supercar. Now there are plenty of changes to talk about here not only the folding hardtop roof that this has but also updates to the Artura in general in the Spyder and coupe form for 2025. Now it is an amazing opportunity that this car is here right now but let me hop in and pop the roof down because of course that is what we want to see about this. A new sound actually comes with it as well. Inside here carbon monocoque, the screen, all things will go through and in fact also the electrochromic roof which at the press of a button can be tinted or go completely clear but turn on the ignition and then pull the switch here and you will see it opens up the tonneau cover behind me. It will then fold open the panel over my head which takes only 11 seconds and can of course be done while you're driving as well. Super super simple and easy just like that and you then have the open top Artura driving experience. Now back here there's a lot to discuss. These floating buttresses have many different purposes in terms of the airflow but the fact they're also clear means you have great visibility from inside. This has all been reworked in terms of the positioning of the chimney for the hot V engine but also the different vents and airflow management that it all offers inside plus power is boosted. We now have 700 horsepower along with some very clever things that are going on behind the scenes. Safe to say there's a lot to this. It's a very exciting car and I think we should do a full walk around to go through the details. I'm going to break this down into a few different sections. We will start with taking a look around the car to talk about the aerodynamics and the design and primarily everything that's going on back here because there are a lot of new features. For example the intakes just here, the airflow managed through the car and where it all goes. Then we'll move to the powertrain, the internal combustion engine along with the axial flux e-motor and the upgrades now for the new model year along with what that means for existing Artura customers. Plus we will also take a good look at the interior where of course we now have a few new controls and some additional features that have been added to it as well before of course also talking about more of the technology and everything going on underneath the skin because there is a lot of it in this car. A very exciting car as I said because this is McLaren's first hybrid Spyder. Now in terms of hybrid cars the lineup has previously seen the McLaren P1 hypercar and of course more recently the McLaren Speedtail but the Artura was their first series production hybrid. This is of course the first series production hybrid Spyder. It near on matches the coupe for performance, the same top speed, almost the same speed to get there as well but I want to focus on the exterior first so let's start there and talk about the design starting right around the very front and one feature in particular I always quite liked about this are the headlights and there are loads of features around the design that actually link back to older McLaren models and this this shape you will recognize from the logo the speed mark tick of the McLaren logo that is mimicked through the lights like on the 720s you have the cooling and the radiators going through there have been a whole host of upgrades to the ADAS system that have now gone into this so in addition to what was available before the new model years also offer blind spot monitoring and cross traffic monitoring as well as we come around familiar from the 600LT the louvres over the arches to help with swelling air as we come down past the side of course these enormous intakes for the airflow management but one thing I found quite intriguing is that even this even the door handle part here is all to do with managing the airflow that is wind tunnel and aero tested have a look up above though and the floating buttress something we've seen on a number of McLaren models including the Artura Coupe but here there are two things to point out number one is the fact that this is a clear window it's made from polycarbonate as opposed to being glass on the 720, 750 and 765 because of the shape because of the extra curvature but what it means if you look over at the other side is that you see straight through it so from inside the car it significantly reduces your blind spots but not only that have a look underneath there is actually an intake here for cooling and this is very clever so the air coming over the car is actually directed by this built-in gurney up at the top to direct it over the top and smoothen down here and in towards these coolers air underneath is of course coming through and over as well and the air going through here is actually directed through where it then comes out here underneath the third brake light both creating a separation for the electronics and the very hot engine below but also with this gurney creating a low pressure air here for the airflow that comes out of the chimney on the back now this itself had to be significantly repositioned from where it was before on the coupe given that the fact that there is a roof that now folds in over the top of that but not only this there's also airflow here that comes in from this side in fact the central side there has airflow coming through and directed this way so you have this cold air hot air and cold air to bring the air out over the back of the car you also have airflow coming through here to the radiators for cooling similarly on this side as well as the other part on this one because again it's split actually goes all the way back in and out this way to create a separation between the roof and the hot engine that's down below it it's very clever where all of this is going through this car the rear deck is reminiscent of the p1 and by that i mean the shape back here which is to do with the aerodynamics but also note how it is one single piece that comes all the way from the door on one side around the entirety of the back of the car to the door on the other and that is thanks to the hot forming technique from aluminium that enables the possibility to make larger more complicated shapes both for being lightweight but also you will notice for reducing the number of panel gaps and lines you basically have on this car the tonneau cover the rear clam the bumper the lower sides doors front wings bonnet and front bumper and that is effectively the entirety of the artura spider we've got these strict tail lights and we need to talk as well about the exhaust system because both the standard exhaust and the optional upgrade sports exhaust have been changed to feature this new element inside which actually pinches the airflow to change the sound to give it a new profile we'll get this fired up in a moment to hear a little bit of that but effectively widening the breadth of sound in terms of the characteristics that you can have from the car down below we've got the diffuser of course again tested for aerodynamic effect hiding inside the eight speed dual clutch transmission the ssg seamless shift gearbox which has also been reworked with a new pre-fill function to shift 25 faster than before coming around towards the front i don't think i mentioned but the windshield surround is actually carbon fiber in fact lots of lightweight components lots of carbon fiber incorporated into the car overall as you would probably expect for such a thing familiar from before quite narrow front tires in fact 235 sitting on the 19 inch wheels up front if we move towards the rear back here we've got the what are we 295 so as sports cars or supercars go fairly narrow overall but new design with the contrast of the lime green metallic calipers on this against the beautiful blue paintwork moving to the powertrain and something i'd like to show you which you wouldn't normally see on one of these but of course it's a complicated hybrid system and i want to explain the upgrades in both the coupe and spider and what that means for existing owners so there's a three litre twin turbocharged v6 mid-mounted somewhere in here driving the rear wheels but of course it sits beneath the roof panel and the tonneau cover so you can't see a whole lot of that unless you were to access it now i want to give you a quick sneak peek as to how this works so let me just turn on the ignition which needs to be on to show you and then open or rather close the roof but open this up and ping the roof panel forwards there are eight electric motors that do this very seamlessly very quietly and very calmly it's actually quite impressive how easy that is to do then from here you have a few controls including one to open the tonneau cover on its own because in here and you have to appreciate how tightly packaged everything actually is this is where you can access your oil and a few other things but also this panel that would be opened when the car is in for service if they need to be able to access or get to any of the components or parts that it has back there unlike other models like the 675lt 720s 750s etc there's no storage in there because well i'm led to believe it will get quite warm and of course you've seen the packaging which is all down to keeping this as low as possible for the maximum view that you can have backwards through that window which of course you can lower as well so talking engine now we have a total of 700 horsepower it effectively retains the same e-motor as before and what's interesting about that is with the same motor and battery they've actually managed to increase the amount of electric electric drive range from 19 miles which was 31 kilometers to 21 miles 33 kilometers by the software which i think is quite clever the combustion engine is now up an additional 20 horsepower to 605 from 585 before with 585 newton meters of torque but what's clever about the changes that they've done for that is that it's all about making you want to drive it it's through the rev range rather than just being at the top end so it's about that snappier sportier experience and feeling which obviously i'd love to find out for myself out on the road to give you some of the numbers zero to 100 kilometers an hour 62 miles an hour in here three seconds matching the coupe zero to 200 kilometers an hour 124 miles an hour 8.4 seconds only 0.1 behind the coupe at 8.3 zero to 300 kilometers an hour that's 186 miles an hour in the spider is 21.5 seconds only again 0.1 behind the 21.4 seconds of the coupe and onto your top speed as i said of 205 miles an hour 330 kilometers an hour these are big numbers this is a very fast car and of course the idea with the hybrid system and the different driving modes whether you're in full electric driving in hybrid where it will adjust backwards and forwards depending what you need or if you're in one of the two more track focused driving modes is that the different profiles basically allow this to happen in the background the idea is that for you as the driver it's all super easy it's just happening it's doing its thing and i'm interested by the amount of electric range because that's enough for a quick run somewhere without having to necessarily fire up the combustion engine if you want to be quiet or you just enjoy the fact that you can because at the end of the day that is part of it as well all with this eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox which like i mentioned now has pre-fill for 25 faster shifts it was already pretty quick before so i can only imagine how quick it can shift now when you're out driving it in anger on a racetrack moving then to the interior let me show you a little bit more through what we have here so of course the performance sports seats with the contrast interior with these accents that match some of the exterior detailing and the illumination as you can see around the door looking very smart of course based around the carbon fiber monocoque the same carbon tub that you have in coupe and spider they share that in common which like the other newer models is much easier for swinging your legs in for the dashboard display we have the handling controls up here and the powertrain on the other side as we saw obviously with artura coupe but there have been some changes so let me swing myself into the car here to show you a little bit more through it now i have always particularly liked mclaren steering wheels the shift paddles are mounted to the wheel they have the rocker functionality so you can either press them or pull them from either side making that click just to let you know and they also have precog which means when you pull it gently it knows what you're about to do and then it will immediately pop it into the next gear when you then press the button in the center we have the eight inch digital touchscreen with the physical control over to the side that you're just going to press the ignition button wake things up for the moment so you can see a little bit of this we've got currently some of the information about the comfort driving mode that we have selected this is where you control it up through here and as you can see up through sport and then into track which firms things up in terms of the handling the suspension side of it and the other side does the throttle response and as you can see here going from electric comfort sport or again up into track mode with a different display depending on the different driving modes and what you're in but what has changed in here down below is the introduction of a wireless charging pad back here this is actually an option normally that would be another cup holder but there is now a wireless charging pad option in there you've still got one cup holder here at the front but nothing else to do with the central tunnel has changed you still have your drive neutral reverse buttons hazards and the start button because all of your controls for the roof have been mounted up at the top this is where you have the rear window so you can open that on its own it will automatically go if your roof is down to a middle position which is optimized for the airflow but obviously the fun of driving even on a wet day you can still pop the roof down and hear more of the engine sound without having any of the rain water coming in you'll spot just down below it actually while we're talking about this the bowers and wilkins speaker back here this is a new speaker found only in the spider of course a very clever sound system the optional upgrade system which offers changing modes depending if the roof is open or closed but having that new speaker to help with that sound experience you also here as i mentioned have the switch gear for the roof itself and the button there for the electrochromatic element of it where you can change the tint now i am going to press this button so foot on the brake let's get this started fires up the v6 with a very nice rasp as you can hear and obviously helping with the battery given i'm playing around with all of this while we're sat here so to open it you pull that way yep i need to confirm the tonneau is empty because of course i actually had it open just a moment ago but nice and simple from inside to give you a different view of it it is just like that very easy up to 31 miles an hour 50 kilometers an hour you can get that all opened up and then as you can see that middle position of the rear window as i mentioned before other details inside the mclaren speed mark embossed on the headrest this lovely piping that matches with the illumination around that door shape lots of those speed mark shapes that you see through the design and then this new infotainment which is significantly more responsive than the older systems obviously in the earlier days that was always a struggle now i do enjoy the drive the feeling that proper suspension and handling feeling we've got the lift system here you've got lane departure and by the way the aas systems in here like the lane departure remember what you had set before so if you don't want that on because it annoys you one press and it will stay off and remember that the next time to make your life just that touch easier and it gives you that graphic down the middle at the bottom that shows you which setting you have it on of course it also has traffic sign recognition and blind spot monitoring and everything else as i've mentioned along with the lovely soft close on the doors that pulls them down into position and a great view even things like the door mirror arm are actually aerodynamic to help with the airflow into the side intakes those are engineered to have a purpose they're not just bolted onto the side of the car and left to be where they are the sun visors pretty simple but i guess do the job no mirror on there and the parent text up here because of course there's a motor just inside there to latch it into place and the passenger side doesn't get a rear view mirror all lightweight this dashboard with the air conditioning blowing out both through the vents and down here as well so quite a lot to it sounds exciting be fun to go and take this for a little spin so pop open the door i've got some storage space here but do be aware that when you open up the door and like the 750 they don't automatically close something could just fall out by the wayside there you do have and i want to talk about this variable drift control which was introduced first back with the 720 but effectively turn off traction control which in this car learning as i go is hiding somewhat from me not even sure where it is uh yes i am how silly it's up there it's right there and easily available when you've turned off or popped esc into dynamic one press like that you then have variable drift control where you can choose the angle and the amount of slip that you would like to have from it so if you've turned on this functionality you can choose how sideways you'd like the car to let you go on a scale all the way through from 1 to 15 which is actually really quite impressive obviously helps you hone in your driving skills and have some fun with that along the way so lots of different driving modes you can see we've got the battery charge level and when you're down into full electric it changes or comfort and electric it changes to show you the range in miles as well as or instead i should say of the amount of percent that you have because obviously when you're in the higher performing modes it will be charging up on a much more effective basis to help you with your lap times very different profiles obviously this car has been driven hence why the range is quite low at the moment not to mention the fact that i am sitting here playing and pressing every single button that i can possibly find on it to test and run through to discover what the artura spider is all about certainly some nice steps and changes with it other things to talk about technology under the skin and you can imagine with the changes by the additional weight it's only 62 kilos to have the folding hardtop over the coupe which is nothing as these things go but that does require a change to the suspension along with changes that have happened organically anyway given it's been a couple of years which are of course now found on both models there there's a new symposer as well familiar from the isg of the old p11 cars that helps use a diaphragm to bring real engine sound into the cabin which wasn't found before but the advantage of that is you have a very real sound it's not a speaker it's bringing genuine engine noise into what you hear inside in addition to that there are new engine mounts which will again give you more of a feel of excitement of driving the car giving you more of that sense of what the engine is actually doing plus a bit of functionality that artura didn't have before that i quite enjoy from the different mclarens i've owned is the reintroduction of spinning wheel pull away known as burnout mode to you and i except in here unlike the other cars where you engage it and you feel like the computers are working away and getting ready and then a second later it kind of dumps the torque and spins up the rear wheels this is much more of a natural just go straight to 100 throttle when you're in the right settings and boom it will light up those rear tires and you will very quickly have a big bill to buy some new ones to get them fitted on the car but you'll have had a lot of fun in the process so i didn't really explain the power upgrade and this will vary from one region to the next depending on specifics but effectively as an existing owner of a 680 horsepower artura it will be possible at the dealer to get that extra 20 horsepower upgrade and to have the car then driving differently obviously with homologation rules and things it makes that a touch complicated in certain markets but i guess in many it's going to be possible to bring it up into the 700s which is an insane amount of power for the i don't what entry-level supercar from mclaren it's a big big big number when you consider that when the 12c launched as the flagship supercar at the time it had 625 or 600 and then 625 and then 650 for the 650s so exciting times and a lot of fun to be able to take a first look at this i mean how cool is it that the mclaren artura spider is here at the schmuseum and of course being filmed before the world has even seen that this car is out there it's back to how things were sadly no more artura spider here at the schmuseum i'm not too sad about it because i do have my 675 lt spider which is actually coming on towards 20 000 miles now that's how much driving i've done with this thing and something that the artura does as well in its convertible form this does is that rear window going down and honestly you can't understate the benefit of that in a convertible even if you never want to put the roof down never ever want to drive with the open top even just opening the rear window the extra feel you get of what's going on around you the extra sound from the engine the shift noises the general feel of the environment is so much more fun especially for a road car at the end of the day which is what all of these things are even the lt which is very much about the track ethos is still a road car wearing a number plate which means you're going to be driving it on twisty roads out on the normal environment and it's really special this is a very very significant car to me as i said earlier that whole p11 storyline being i guess almost part in some way of the growth of mclaren from the early days with the 12c when the company was still relatively unknown and i have some amazing fun memories of taking that car to italy obviously where ferrari and lamborghini are very much established and people had no idea what it was they would come up to read the badge on the back because at the time the front didn't have the full logo it just had the speed mark so they'd go and read the badge on the back and you'd just hear people reading it not knowing that brand necessarily and then going through the 650 and the 675 and the spider in the center and seeing the understanding and awareness of what mclaren are all about as the dealership network has grown as the client base has grown as the company has significantly grown along the way now it goes without saying that there have certainly been some ups and downs as pretty much every company has had in recent years but artura has now i guess found its footing a little bit more with these new updates with these new upgrades and i should point out by the way that existing owners get the upgrade free of charge it's not something you have to pay for to go and upgrade to that new 700 horsepower output as well as things like the five-year warranty and three-year service pack that comes with the car and 10 years on the paintwork as well so all things that are a big deal at the end of the day in terms of the ownership proposition i really enjoy this car it is honestly one of my favorite cars to go out and drive and i've really enjoyed each time i've driven the various different models that have come since whether that's the 720s the 765lt the 750s obviously the center if we go back also we've got the p1 and speedtail and elva you've got the sport series cars 540c 570s 600lt 620r mclaren have made some amazing cars and what you have to remember is that the company at this point in its present form mclaren automotive has only been delivering road cars for a little over 12 years that's not long and they produce the cars and the technology that they do it's quite remarkable honestly and really cool to see as i also said earlier that formula 1 technology in so many of these things coming to the road cars coming to cars that people like some of you guys and myself get to experience and certainly share through these videos which is just mega this was ahead of its time i mean the 12c was way ahead of its time the 675 was the ultimate evolution of that arguably there was the msohs which was very much this but with a larger wing at the back and an extra 13 horsepower which i suspect in the real world you probably wouldn't notice but hyper limited in terms of numbers but that's always been an amazing car i drove the 750s spider recently that was an amazing car and i suspect our tourist spider is going to be right up there as well so hopefully there'll be an opportunity to drive it to hear more of the sound because it didn't sound hugely loud here obviously i've only started it and given it some baby revs so i can't comment fully but it didn't sound as loud as perhaps i was expecting and of course ultimately to see how it stacks up against some of its competitors the likes of the 296 gts and the mc20 cielo both of which we do know are significantly heavier while i don't have official numbers i would suspect that the cars in the italian corner might be slightly embellished from what i've read and seen online which i'm sure you can google and find as well versus mclaren's which tend to be pretty accurate so it is by far the lightest car in its class it is by far one of the most advanced cars in its class as well it's a very exciting thing they've been able to introduce with loads of technology and i think the whole fact that it was right here is just super cool and i want to say thank you again to the team at mclaren for making that possible to the guys who came down today bringing the car of course to make sure it was all under wraps and we weren't going to just go and drive it out down the street given that it's not supposed to exist yet quite at this point so i think that's pretty much where we can wrap things up for today i hope you've enjoyed this first look at mclaren's new artura spider i would like to thank you very much again to the team there and of course to you guys for your support it is absolutely crazy to me that this is somehow possible each and every day is mega well very much a mega pinch moment let's just put it that way for now though that is all thanks again and i'll see you soon cheers