I had hoped to follow-up our last RFD “build your own” feature, the uber-Porsche 918, with the McLaren P1. But alas, the folks from Surrey don’t offer a configurator for that car, but they do for the 650! So today’s featured car is the McLaren 650S Spider that features an all-aluminium, twin-turbocharged, 3.8-litre V8 with over 1,100 crafted parts, dry-sump lubrication and a flat-plane crankshaft. Everyone is flat planing their V8s these days. Ok, let’s paint this bitch.
This gives us a chance to get to know the configuration tool. In this case, it’s pretty solid. Tabs down the left for paint, wheels, exterior, interior, and accessories let you bounce back and forth easily. A bit of a nit-noid criticism, but the red tab on the right needs to be clicked to actually see the car sometimes. So you have to open and close the options tab to see what you are modifying at times. But overall, its pretty easy to use. Oh and we went with “McLaren Orange”, because why not. Unsure if this is costing me any money, as they don’t have dollars, pounds, or any other currency listed. Hmm, its wheel time.
Wheels come in four varieties, Lightweight Forged 650S (standard), Lightweight Forged, Lightweight Forged II, and finally the option we chose, Super-Lightweight Forged. Because if you are going to build a supercar, you want the most badass wheels. To make them baddassier, which is not a word, you can opt for the “Stealth” finish to make them darker. There is also a nifty “Diamond cut” finish that is sort of a hybrid between silver and stealth. Brakes offer various caliper colors, and we went for the Pirelli P Zero Corsa “tyres”
Now onto the exterior, where it’s all carbon fibre, all the time. Mirror casings, diffuser, engine cover, wheel arches, front splitter, intakes, door blades, airbrake, you can literally chose just about any exterior feature and CF the heck out of it. Is this costing me money McLaren? I’m sure it is, just don’t know how much. More on that later. You can also opt for the sport exhaust, some badging, and other items in this section. What’s this last one, “Carbon Fibre Exterior Upgrade Pack”? Son of a bitch, that would have saved me a lot of clicks. Put this one first McLaren. Put this one first.
Inside, it’s a pretty nice place to (virtually) be with tons of material options to choose from. Seating ranges from a standard bucket, to heated and electric versions of the standard bucket to racing seats! Oh yes, I’ll have those. Free I assume since it doesn’t have an additional cost designated. Like a lot of manufacturer sites, this one warns you when you make a change. I received this notice: “You have chosen Carbon Fibre Racing Seats and we have made the following changes. Adding Full Leather Interior With Racing Seats to your configuration. Removing the Full Alcantara Interior.”
Wait, but I want alcantara (even if I can’t say it on screen, laugh it up Josh)! Oh, I can just click on the next section “Full Alcantara With Racing Seats”. Boom, that’s nice.
Rounding out the car is the Accessories category. Nothing special here, some audio options and a section called “practical” with stuff like a car cover, fire extinguisher (just in case, it is a supercar after all), and some other stuff. Here’s the RFD McLaren 650S Spider, so go ahead and deliver one to DC and we’ll put it through its paces.
Paint
Exterior Special Paint – McLaren Orange
Wheels & Brakes
Super-Lightweight Forged – Stealth Finish
Brakes & Calipers – Standard Calipers Black With Silver Logo (STD)
Tyres – Pirelli P Zero Corsa
Exterior
To save space, just know that we Carbon Fibre’d ALL THE THINGS
Exhaust – Sport
Interior
Carbon Fibre Racing Seats
Trim – Full Alcantara With Racing Seats
Similarly, we Alcantara’d everything
Accessories
Audio – Standard + SIRIUS
Protection – Tyre Pressure Monitoring System
Practical – Lithium-Ion Battery Charger, Branded Floor Mat Set
Driver Position – Left Hand Drive
Owner Manual Language – Owners Manual USA English
System Language – System Language – English (USA)
All this will come at a price. I just don’t have a clue how much. Oh, wait, Edmunds says the MSRP is $282,625 and some key upgrades like the race seats will cost $6,940, most interior carbon fibre upgrades run $3000-$4000 with exterior CF mods running much higher. Their speculated final tally is in the neighborhood of $337,595. All-in-all, McLaren’s configurator is pretty solid and liked the number of options available to customize your 650S Spider, but we think they should toss in some pricing for serious buyers. For non-serious buyers like myself, it was still a lot of fun.
/Follow on Twitter: @WilliamByrdUSA
All images courtesy McLaren
