I’m sure we all remember the McLaren P1, a hybrid supercar, which some called a hypercar, that was part of the Holy Trinity at the time of launch, together with the Porsche 918 Spyder and the Ferrari LaFerrari, the McLaren P1 took the development of hybrid power from their 2010 Formula One KERS to their in-house MSO department, the McLaren Special Operations, to see how the F1 technology could be put into a road car, and they didn’t stop with the KERS on-demand hybrid power, but the P1 also came with DRS (Drag Reduction System) and their IPAS (Integrated Power Assist System).
The result was the McLaren P1 powered by a relatively small 3.8-Liter V8 engine with dual turbochargers that delivered 727 hp, a figure raised by 177 hp from the single electric motor for a total output of 903 hp, all sent to the rear wheels only. With a limited production run of just 375 units, the P1 sold out even before the development was completed, McLaren was still fine-tuning their prototypes at that time, with an MSRP around the $1 million mark, today we have the McLaren Artura, the first hybrid production car for McLaren, and while this time the MSRP is below $300,000, but while the Artura is probably a further development of what MSO learned from the P1, this time we only get a 3-Liter V6 twin-turbocharged engine with 577 hp coupled to a 94 hp electric motor for a total output of 671 hp, still an impressive number, but far from the nearly 1,000 hp of the P1 hypercar.
Let’s take a look at what renowned car collector Jay Leno has to say about the McLaren Artura in his latest Jay Leno’s Garage episode:
