McLaren 720S Is More Powerful Than You Think
Automakers like to lie about horsepower, but you can’t hide from a dyno.
McLaren’s latest supercar is better than its older siblings in nearly every measure. The new 720S makes more horsepower, torque and has a higher top speed than any iteration of the 650 or 675 before it. If you ask McLaren, they will tell you that their new 4.0-liter M840T motor makes 710 horsepower and 586 lb-ft of torque.
But the boys in Woking are lying through their teeth, and we have the proof.
A new McLaren 720S was recently strapped down to a dyno and it managed to make an average of around 696 horsepower and 558 lb-ft of torque. But those numbers are measured at the wheels, meaning this new McLaren is making a lot more than 720 horsepower at the crank. McLaren is sandbagging its performance metrics big time.
Now it is worth mentioning that every dyno is going to be a bit different, and every run will have variation. Even the weather can pretty dramatically affect performance when doing horsepower testing on a dyno. That said, let’s do some imaginary numbers to show how impressive this performance is. We are going to pretend this dyno is reading high, so let’s take away five-percent of that horsepower. That puts us at around 661 ponies. Now let’s say McLaren has a very efficient drivetrain, so there is only a 10-percent power loss from engine to wheels (rather than the accepted rule of 15-20 percent). That math has power back up to almost 730hp at the crank. Still over the “official” rating.
Any way you slice it, the new 720S is a mighty fine performer. We can’t wait to see what tuners are going to do when they get ahold of this thing.
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