McLaren’s New $200,000 GT Is Built for a Luxurious Ride, Not the Racetrack

McLaren knows that a brighter future may lay away from the track.

Unveiled at last week’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the British automaker’s newest car, the GT, is an attempt to shift the company’s focus ever so slightly from performance to comfort and refinement. As previously covered in the June issue of Robb Report, the car also establishes a new category for the company, an important step at a time when it is looking to increase annual sales by 25 percent.

Competing with other Grand Tourers, like the Porsche 911 and the Aston Martin DB11, the latest McLaren’s carbon-fiber body still shows off the brand’s signature daring style, only turned down a couple notches. Once the doors open, though, drivers are met with a much more luxurious interior than usual. In addition to Nappa leather, hidden-until-lit ambient lighting and ergonomic seating, there’s also the company’s most advanced infotainment system yet—offering entertainment options, navigation tools and real-time traffic updates—along with an optional 12-speaker Bowers & Wilkins premium audio system. There’s plenty of room to store bags, golf clubs or even skis, too, with 20.1 cubic feet of rear luggage space accessible through the tailgate, according to Cool Hunting. There’s also some space in the nose of the car, or the “frunk.”

But because this is McLaren we’re talking about, the GT’s performance specs aren’t anything to sniff at, either. It can hit 62 mph in just 3.2 seconds and has an impressive top speed of 203 mph. These supercar-worthy numbers come courtesy of the vehicle’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine with 465 pounds of torque.

While this isn’t the company’s first Grand Tourer (the 570GT was released in 2016), this is its first concerted attempt to tap into the market. And while competitors like Lamborghini, Bentley and Rolls-Royce are experimenting with SUVs, it would seem that McLaren plans to focus in a different direction. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the company is likely to offer more GT variants in the future, especially since it has committed to launching 18 new cars by 2025 as part of its goal of reaching 6,000 in yearly sales.

The McLaren GT starts at £163,000 (about $204,000) is available for pre-order now. Vehicles will start shipping later this year. Check out more photos of the GT below: