An Inside Look at the 2016 McLaren 675LT Coupe

The sound of the engine – faithful readers know my penchant for loud exhaust, no doubt a throwback to my years in the Gasoline Alley of my youth – is just awesome. In fact, that’s another example of how McLaren follows the credo of WYSIWYG (pronounced “WizzyWig” by the computer folks), as What You See definitely is What You Get – a road rocket that looks, sounds and behaves like the supercar which it appears to be.

This car makes no apologies for what it is either. Try the seats – a one-piece carbon fiber design that hugs your back and keeps your body in place. Want to adjust the back angle or the side supports? Get another seat. This bucket puts you where you’re meant to be if you are driving a supercar, slightly reclined instead of bolt-upright, with arms stretched straight in front (there is a front-back sliding adjustment) and held in place as protection against those pesky Gs which want to throw you around when this car is put through its paces.

So, now that you’ve read this far, let’s talk about the LT designation and what that means. It’s not as if every supercar company has a “long tail” version of their cars, right, so why does McLaren? The answer comes from history, back in the mid-1990s. Way back then, the McLaren racing team found that having a body with a short front (between the driver and the front bumper) but a long tail (between the driver and the rear bumper) gave it improved handling and a distinctive look. To many, the hottest car then on the planet was the McLaren F1. The vaunted McLaren F1 was the road-going version but, for racing, the McLaren F1 GTR actually had less power than the “regular” F1 due to racing restrictions at that time but, in its first racing outing – the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995 – the F1 GTRs finished first, third, fourth, fifth and thirteenth, an amazing victory (the first time a manufacturer had such results in its inaugural racing year) which cemented the McLaren name as a race car designer and builder in to the annals of history. Through those efforts, McLaren discovered that the longer tail (about two feet longer in their race cars) gave their cars less drag (wind resistance) and more downforce (increased pressure on the rear wheels, helping with traction). And that’s the genesis of the 675LT.