2020 McLaren 720S Spider First Drive

"Just drive it like a normal car," says the McLaren rep, handing over the key and pointing at what looks like a spaceship parked in the hotel turnaround. The alien craft is the 2019 McLaren 720S Spider, a convertible version of McLaren's latest hyperfast supercar.

It's probably for the best. Space travel looks so uncomfortable, what with the rough launches and the cramped cryogenic pods. Much better to settle into a pair of leather buckets mounted deep in a carbon-fiber shell and backed not by rockets, but by a 710-horsepower twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8. Convertibles are a bad idea in space anyway, but a great idea in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. We drop the top before leaving the parking lot and head out to see if anything about a supercar can be normal.

Old Tech Meets New

"Take it where you'd normally go in your own car." That's the driving instruction, and who are we to argue? First, a twist along a lake road that introduces us to the 720's lightning-fast shifts and eyelash-curling acceleration.

Step on the gas. There's no off-the-line burnout like in a high-horsepower muscle car. It's more of a momentary vacuum, as if you can feel all the air in front of the car being sucked through the hollow doors into the waiting radiators concealed in the Spider's broad haunches or directed along the quarter-panel buttresses and active rear wing. Then, hold on. The 720S pulls away and keeps pulling.

McLaren says top speed is a retina-flattening 212 mph. You'll understand if we don't test that on the public road. We can say that the car goes 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds, which is faster than you can say "zero to 60." The twin-turbo engine doesn't roar so much as whoosh, and while it may not be a Grammy-winning soundtrack, you'll barely hear it over your own delighted giggling.

When it's time to come back to Earth, hit the brakes hard. You might catch a glimpse in the rear view of the active rear spoiler flipping forward like a crossing guard's stop sign to assist in bringing the beast to a halt. Not that the brakes need any help — the giant carbon-ceramic rotors (15.4-inch front and 15.0-inch rear) get the job done. But the wing looks spectacular in action. Speeding up, slowing down or turning, the car moves so fluidly you are reminded once again of sci-fi tech.

There's a temptation to check that it's actually stuck to the ground and not simply hovering above it. It is though. Nineteen-inch aluminum wheels in the front and 20-inch wheels in the back are wrapped in Pirelli P Zero tires and remain firmly planted.

Breathless from the sheer insanity of it all, we turn toward Phoenix to test the real-world usability. Sure, the 720S is a dream on a smooth mountain jaunt, but how will it handle clogged freeways, rutted industrial roads, and a busy parking lot outside the local taco joint?

As it turns out, the 720S Spider is still dreamy. On the freeway, passing power isn't a problem — obviously — but visibility isn't an issue either because you can see through the tinted-glass rear roof pillars.

Rough roads don't upset the Spider. In Comfort mode it floats right over them, and steep driveways are conquered by a driver-controlled front-axle lift system. A combo of sensors and a 360-degree camera make parking stress-free. The doors open almost straight up, meaning that we could comfortably exit the car when parked next to another vehicle, or, as it turns out, between a 70-year-old lathe and a pile of scrap metal.

Weight a Second

We ended up taking the McLaren by Blake Machine Co. — a machine shop that's been in business since the early 1960s and that specializes in vintage land speed and drag racing cars. Our host was delighted by the 720S, quizzing us about the adaptive suspension and comparing the various air inlets to those on a Buick salt-flat racing car inside the garage. He showed us some rare drag racing parts from the late '60s, and nodded approvingly when we told him the 720S runs a 10.4-second quarter-mile. We left Blake's with a hearty appreciation for the evolution of automotive technology.

So much of the 720's abilities are made possible by its lightweight skeleton. "We're not in a horsepower race; we're in a weight race," says McLaren's CEO, Mike Flewitt. It isn't enough to make a fire-breathing powerplant if the vehicle it's in is heavy and unwieldy.

The answer for McLaren is composite construction. McLaren has been using carbon fiber since the 1980s, and its current generation of supercars start with a carbon pod. Both the 720S coupe and the convertible are designed from the same starting point, and the strength of the pod is what allows for the delicate windshield pillars and transparent buttresses on the Spider, as well as its rocket-ship performance. When you ask 710 horses to move a little over 3,000 pounds, you better prepare to leave orbit. In the McLaren 720S Spider, you'll do it in comfort.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

It's not that you're going to forget you're in a $327,000 convertible that looks like it formed out of drops of molten metal solidified at speed — our test car in Supernova Silver looked particularly evil-Terminator — but all the little things that normally cause so much stress in a low-slung, low-seat sports car just aren't there.

Entry into the car is easy, with a lower doorsill and a thinner, less intrusive windshield frame. Once inside, adjustable leather seats provide a surprising amount of padding. True seating adjustability is unusual in supercar-land, and this vertically challenged test driver really appreciates driving a 710-horsepower car and seeing over its dash at the same time. Normally the driving position is just sort of peering through the steering wheel like a fast-moving version of Tim Allen's neighbor on Home Improvement.

But even if you were stuck with the interior view, it's not a bad one. Leather and carbon fiber chase each other around the cabin and across the steering wheel. A digital dash pod sits behind the flat-bottom wheel like a helpful robot companion waiting for instruction, and shift controls for the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission cascade down from a vertically mounted 8-inch touchscreen to end in a cupholder and console.

The overall feel of the 720S interior is more like landscape than architecture. It's so full of little bridges and arches that it looks like a leather-wrapped Utah state park. Much like Utah, it's clean and sensible, with a minimum of fussy knobs and buttons. Paddle shifters and nose-lift lever are behind the steering wheel, and the Comfort, Sport and Track mode selector are to the right in the center stack. Those and the pedals are pretty much all the controls you need in a 720S, although if you did choose the 12-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio system or want to use the navigation, those features are much improved over previous McLaren models, and they're found in the center touchscreen.

Top Gun

With the top up, the 720S Spider is light and airy thanks to an optional glass hardtop that replaces the standard carbon-fiber roof with an electrochromic-glazed panel. If it gets a bit too convection oven-y inside with the greenhouse option, just tap the button at the front of the window and watch the clear glass instantly darken to block out heat and UV rays. When the car is parked with the roof up, it automatically reverts to the darker setting to keep the cabin cool. But we're in a convertible. Let's put the top down. It takes just 11 seconds to tuck away, and it can be raised or lowered when the car is moving up to 31 mph.

People don't usually shop for supercars as daily drivers, but the 720S Spider would be happy to take the job. Perhaps NASA should talk with the McLaren engineers to get some idea of how to make a faster-than-light trip more pleasant, because if they can make a spaceship as comfortable and easy to drive as the 720S, it will be no problem finding volunteers for the Mars mission.