Just 10 examples made, each rich with heritage.
British sports car specialists McLaren enjoy a rich, colourful history, with strong involvement in motorsports and more than their fair share of titles and championships. As such, McLaren of Newport Beach, a south California dealership that enjoys its status as the largest McLaren retailer in the US, ordered 10 cars to celebrate that heritage. And rolling with the initiative, McLaren Special Operations have given the 10 uniquely-specced cars a name: The MSO X.
“The aim of this project was to have a serious track car that could still be driven on the road, and this finished project screams ‘race car’ to the casual onlooker. To have the MSO X project go from renderings at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last July to the 10 magnificent supercars that we have handed over to our excited clients today, is nothing short of amazing.” — Pietro Frigerio, Dealer Principal, McLaren Newport Beach
The 10 cars in question are inspired by the McLaren 570S GT4 racecar, but feature the required trappings to make them entirely road-legal. A special event in Las Vegas saw the 10 cars handed over to their respective owners, and serve to show the “limitless enhancement and personalisation” of McLaren’s supercars under the umbrella as McLaren Special Operations.
“The MSO X collection is the perfect example of the rich vein of bespoke service offered by McLaren Special Operations. Customers come to us with their thoughts and ideas and MSO works with them to set boundaries within which they can then let their imaginations run wild. What could be better than a McLaren buyer playing the role of ‘race engineer’ in briefing the MSO team and directing them to test and validate those ideas to create a race-bred road car such as this?” — Jolyon Nash, Executive Director (Sales & Marketing, Global), McLaren Automotive
The exact design of each car is inspired by the iconic 90s McLaren racecars, as well as modern iterations like the 570S GT4. As such, you will find various performance and aerodynamic addenda like an enormous rear wing (adding 100kg of downforce), a roof-snorkel, front dive planes, a titanium “Super Sports” exhaust, and satin-finish carbon fibre across the bodywork.
The cabin has not been spared the MSO treatment either, adopting a track-honed minimalist approach that is certainly less inviting than most of McLaren’s road cars. The Monocell 2 chassis and its exposed carbon fibre weave is exposed, as is the carbon fibre weave on the seats, sill panel, and bulkhead. There’s also a colour-matched harness bar inside that serves to hold the 6-point racing harness in place, though McLaren is quick to point out that regular 3-point seat belts are also available. And, McLaren Track Telemetry gets lobbed on as standard, along with its full suite of cameras.
The two cars photographed each pay homage to legendary McLaren racecars. The white model is #08, which is painted in the same Anniversary White with red & blue accents as the McLaren F1 GTR Longtail (chassis #26R) which managed 3rd at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1997. The grey car, MSO X #10, is inspired by the F1 GTR that won the same event two years earlier, and features identical Ueno Grey with black accents.
There are no mechanical changes to report, so there should be a 3.8-litre biturbo V8 mounted in the middle, putting out a whopping 419kW and 600Nm to the rear wheels, with a 7-speed double-clutch automatic in the middle. The standard 570S does the century sprint in just 3.2-seconds, so we expect the MSO X cars to do that in a little less time, given that they’re much, much lighter.
Should a race-inspired road car not be quite your thing, you can read our coverage of the McLaren 570S Spider launch here.
For more information on McLaren, check out our Showroom.
