McLaren 570S Convertible Review & Prices

Let’s face it — any car with two seats, a pointy body, no roof, and a 562hp turbo V8 shoved in the back is going to be at least ‘good’, now isn’t it? It’s only when you start to dig a little deeper that the McLaren 570S Spider’s good and bad points come to the surface.

Let’s start with what lies beneath — McLaren’s carbon-fibre chassis. That puts this 570S a notch above the likes of an Audi R8 or Porsche 911, which both use aluminium or plain old steel in their structure. For that matter, it puts it above any current Ferrari, bar the SF90 and makes it closer to McLaren’s Grand Prix cars than any rival road-going sports or supercar. 

As well as being very light and very strong, the 570S's structure means that when you cut the roof off to turn it into a convertible Spider, you don’t lose all of the stiffness. Anything made from metal is going to need lots of extra structure under the skin to make up for the loss of the roof, which means more weight, but the 570S Spider can do without that, which means it weighs in at a trim 1,498kg. 

The roof itself isn’t a mere sheet of cloth supported by metal struts, either. It’s a two-piece composite structure, which folds away in a space-saving Z-shape, leaving the open sky over your head, and two rather gorgeous buttresses behind the head rests. It’s not that often that a convertible actually looks better than the coupe on which it’s based, but the 570S Spider pulls it off.

It does lack the clever active aerodynamics of the more expensive McLaren models — no mobile rear wing, a la 750S, here — but it’s still sleek, low, and looks like an expensive arrowhead on wheels.

Power comes from the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 that powers all of McLaren’s lineup aside from the V6 hybrid Artura. 562hp doesn’t sound all that much these days — you can get plenty of BMW, Audi, and Mercedes saloons with more grunt under the bonnet than that — but thanks to the 570S Spider’s flyweight structure, it’ll sprint to 62mph in just 3.2secs. It also has a top speed of 204mph, if your house happens to be Autobahn-adjacent — how’s that for an entry-level model? Better yet — the lack of a roof means that the V8 engine, which can sound a touch bland compared to what Ferrari or Maserati can provide, howls much more sweetly in your ears.

There’s 600Nm of torque too, and a seven-speed ‘Seamless Shift’ dual-clutch gearbox, so you can slouch around at low speed letting everyone admire you. It’s even quite smooth over bumps, thanks to McLaren’s traditional witchcraft when it comes to suspension tuning. Then there are the cool dihedral doors, which open up and out, and which will get you the most stares at the kerbside unless someone shows up in a 1980s Lamborghini Countach.

That’s not the point, of course. The point is that the 570S Spider is an absolute blast to drive. The steering gets hydraulic, not electric, power assistance so there’s oodles of feel and feedback, and that light weight means you can confidently chuck it at corners, knowing that the nose will stick. For all that, it’s a little easier to live with, and easier on the nerves, than one of McLaren’s more show-pony 700hp+ models. 

It’s not even that thirsty — you can squeeze better than 25mpg out of it if you try — and it’s not even totally impractical. There’s reasonable space in the twin boots (one in the nose, and one in the back) even if it does miss out on the useful tailgate of the 570S GT. It’s two-seat only, of course, but there’s decent space in the cabin too. 

The problem might be that McLaren doesn’t have a rosy reputation for reliability and there have been plenty of reports of problems with the car’s in-house infotainment software, so buy with your eyes open. Beware the options list too, as some of the extras are wildly expensive.

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