NEW McLaren Artura review: the SENSIBLE supercar?

Steve Sutcliffe drives the searingly fast McLaren Artura, and finds out that it could use just a little bit more bite...

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The Artura matters for McLaren. A lot. Its new carbon fibre platform and twin-turbo V6 hybrid powertrain will form the basis for pretty much all McLarens for the next decade, so it can’t really afford to put a foot wrong. Hence the reason its original launch was postponed from late last year until now, some eight months later, thereby allowing Ferrari to launch its own V6 hybrid – the 296 GTB – to such acclaim in the meantime.

But that’s how vital the Artura is to McLaren’s future, so the fact that we’ve now driven it in near-production form on its international launch and experienced numerous technical issues with it – some minor, some not – does seem hard to excuse. To be blunt, for all its speed, drama and dynamic capability, we’re not sure it should be on sale just yet, not until there’s clear evidence that the technical issues it continues to suffer from have been resolved. This is not a nice thing to say about any new car, let alone one on which the future of a British car company is so obviously hinged. Nevertheless, we sent Steve Sutcliffe to find out what the new Artura is like on both road and track in this full review.

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[thgearouttahere]

Finally! Sutcliffe is the man for the job 👏🏼

[AyaxRo]

The man, the myth, the legend. Sutcliffe. Always a treat to see Steve wring out these cars.

[eliotsalandybrown]

Steve's evaluations carry so much weight. Thanks for bringing all your experience to bear Sutcliffe!

[ARTHURCBR]

Which is more orange? The car? or the legend Steve, looking fit and healthy 👍

[sambitparida]

Sutcliffe can be drifting at 100 miles an hr and will still talk like he's chatting in a coffee shop early morning. Man's a legend!

[GeordieAmanda]

Lots of reviews suddenly appeared for this car, but this is where I come to first. Yay! It's Steve :)

[stevencahill]

sutcliffe and harry metcalf always get my first view, they will tell me all i want to know about a car

[MalcomMcLeod]

Do you think they are saving the "personality" for the LT version?

[AllAhabNoMoby]

Great video as always Steve. One small criticism: I often could not hear your voice because the volume of the engine- and road noise was too high.

[hendrix]

I would call this the MP4 12C. Its a new platform
The nutty versions will come.
I'd be sooo happy with this though.

[Eduardolo]

Steve's driving skills are simply impressive. Almost more is how he sums things up. Thanks for that because it's an asset👌

[martinds]

There were like 50 reviews of this car on the same day, this was the best of them.

[Delnevo]

Seems that it's a similar situation to the MP4-12C then. Technically brilliant, whilst being a bit cold

[scottmuir]

So, I love it when an embargo is lifted, we’ll sort of!

Sometimes we have 10 videos that drop at the same time….

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just look for Steve as my base…. Then work backwards!

[samjanko]

Yeah, there are other 5-6 reviews of the same car hitting the tube simultaneously but you can fast forward all of them. Sutcliffe is the man for the job, as the guy underneath writes- and it's true.

[jonathancollard]

Steve is still one of the best if not the best car reviewer. He has transitioned from old school hard copy to YT video competently and without the need for silly “yoouf” vocabulary.

His review of the McLaren 570 Spider persuaded me to buy one of them and 4 years into ownership I am still very happy with it. Not sure I will be swapping out to get an Artura yet or even ever since -if I’m honest- I struggle to cope with 570 ps and so another 100 or so will be wasted on me. Also, I’m seeing little difference in aesthetic between the two that would warrant me throwing in another £120k on a part exchange. 🤨

[ShadowMKII]

Audio mix is pretty poor at times; making it almost impossible to hear what the presenter is saying.

Nice to see Sutcliffe, otherwise.

[sevesellors]

Great video, great car Steve is the master. So many great cars out there, Emira, Alpine, Lamborghini, Ferrari, I think we need Steve to do a group test to make his final choice.

[snail]

Gotta say…Steve crushes reviews, but let’s give it up for the camerawork. You feel like you’re there in the review as well.

What a car though.

[conner.]

Great video BUT what a pity on the sound, so much of the information you cannot hear fully, but I get the drift, as for drifting I bet that’s spot on !