McLaren will roll in to Pebble Beach next week with some new firepower. Both the 570GT road car and 570S GT4 race car will appear at the McCall’s Motorworks Revival hangar party on Wednesday, then The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering on Friday, and finally on the lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It’ll be the first time the GT4 is seen on American soil.
The new 570S GT4 — remember, more numbers and letters mean more speed — has one win under its belt already and is currently being developed in Europe for all GT4 competition. McLaren says it’ll be ready for customer teams in 2017.
The 570GT is the softer side of McLaren. But still plenty fast.
The 570GT, which we drove in May, is aimed at long-range driving, hence the GT in its name. The suspension is a little softer than the hardcore 675LT. It uses the same 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V8 as the rest of the family, delivering 562 hp and 443 lb-ft in this application. The rear hatch folds sideways for an extra 8 cubic feet of storage space. More importantly, the 570GT is one of the few McLarens that isn’t sold out, but you’ll have to write a $198,950 check to get one.
Before you write that check, you’ll probably want a test drive, which you’ll be able to do on Thursday, Aug. 18 at the Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley. It should be fun, considering there are truckloads of great mountain roads in the area. You do have to register for the test drive. Go to retailers.mclaren.com for that. We’re guessing you’ll need at least six figures to sit behind the wheel.
The Lodge will also host four classic McLaren race cars, including the 1966 M2B/1, the first McLaren F1 car; a 1975 M23A/9 driven by Emerson Fittipaldi; a 1984 MP4-2/2 that won three Drivers’ Championships; and the 1970 M8D/4 Can-Am car.
Finally, the McLaren Special Operations team says it will reveal “a unique project” on Sunday, Aug. 21 on the concept lawn. We’ll be looking out for that.
Come back next week for more Pebble Beach coverage — we’ll have boots on the ground in Monterey, and we’ll also have boots on the ground here at the Woodward Dream Cruise, capping off the best week of the year for car lovers.