The $350,000 McLaren 720S Can Outrun Million-Dollar Hypercars

Watch a $350,000 McLaren 720S rip down the drag strip in a time that shames the $900,000 all-wheel drive Porsche 918 Spyder and hangs with even more expensive hybrid hypercars like the McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari.

McLaren's latest model in its Super Series line (a line that started in 2011 with the MP4-12C) is the 710 horsepower 720S. It's a vehicle that seems to consistently impressed everyone who gets behind its wheel, including Road & Track, which measured a 9.9 second quarter-mile in the publication's 2018 Performance Car Of The Year testing (a competition that the British supercar won).

As absurd as Road & Track's sub 10-second quarter mile time is for a car that's powered by only two wheels, DragTimes reports that a bone-stock McLaren 720S in New Jersey managed to scoot through the quarter mile in 9.79 seconds with a trap speed of 147 mph. And it did this multiple times. If you don't believe that, here's a look at one of the runs:

According to DragTimes, the carbon fiber British supercar's owner did nothing special to the car besides slap some tire heaters on to get the rubber nice and sticky before the run.

From there, the impressive performance (which is on par with the Ferrari LaFerrari's and McLaren P1's, and better than the Porsche 918 Spyder's) was a result of a sub-3,200 pound curb weight (that's about the same weight as a Mazda3 hatchback), a good traction control system, and 4.0-liters of twin-turbocharged V8 madness.

Obviously, to really compare the 720S with those approximately seven-figure hybrid hypercars, you'd need to bring them all together on the same track so they can compete under the same test conditions. But the fact that the ~$350,000 (starting price is actually $285,000) 720S is pulling numbers that compete with vehicles worth three times as much is just amazing.