REVIEW: The McLaren GT is a $240,000 luggage hauler that can rocket to 203 mph with your golf clubs in tow

• The 2020 GT is the “grand touring” model from McLaren, boasting a comfortable ride and ample storage space via two trunks.
• In fact, the combined storage space from its trunks is actually more than a Toyota Camry’s trunk capacity.
• The GT starts at $215,500, but my loaner came to $237,930 MSRP after options.
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I’m old enough to remember when there were no McLarens for sale. The only McLaren you could buy for the road was the hallowed F1, which ended production in 1998. Two decades and an exponentially heightened collector status later, most people don’t have a spare $20 million to blow on an F1 at auction today.

But now there are many McLarens to choose from. McLarens that cost far less than $20 million. McLarens that have top-exit exhausts — exhaust tips that point upward, because awesome — McLarens without roofs, and utilitarian McLarens with big trunks.

That brings us to the McLaren GT.  

The 2020 McLaren GT: The one with the big trunk

In 2019, McLaren debuted the new McLaren GT, calling it the “first true McLaren Grand Tourer in the McLaren product family.” Yes, there indeed was the comfort-oriented McLaren 570 GT that came before this, but the past is the past!

As its name promises, the GT is meant for comfortable long-distance driving with additional room for luggage. Other McLarens have been widely praised for their everyday comfort, but the GT offers additional storage space not found elsewhere in McLaren’s lineup. The car still uses a carbon-fiber monocoque called the MonoCell II-T as a lightweight and rigid chassis, but the “T” here stands for “Touring.” 

Basically, it just means that McLaren added a carbon fiber upper structure behind the passenger cabin and made a luggage area above the engine. For anyone who’s ever been annoyed that they can’t take their McLaren on a cross-country road trip and fit “golf clubs or skis” in the back, this is the solution. We count our blessings in this house. 

Details and safety ratings: More trunk space than a Camry. Really.

The GT uses a mid-mounted, 4.0-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 that's good for a claimed 612 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque. All of that is sent to the rear wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. McLaren estimates the 0-to-60-mph sprint to happen in just 3.1 seconds, with a top speed of 203 mph.

It is 15.4 feet long, 6.7 feet wide, and stands about four feet tall. Staggered wheels mean the GT wears 20-inch wheels in the front and 21-inch wheels in the back, both of which are much larger than the 17-inch ones on your Hyundai Elantra. Curb weight comes to 3,384 pounds.

The McLaren GT's front trunk provides 5.3 cubic feet of storage space, and the rear 14.8 cubic feet. Combined, the two offer 20.1 cubic feet of storage room — which is actually more than the 15.1 cubic feet of space found in the single rear trunk on the Toyota Camry. Huh!

The GT is also better on climate guilt than many of its supercar pals, according to its EPA-estimated fuel economy: 15 mpg in the city, 22 mpg on the highway, and 18 mpg combined. Sure, it's not outstanding. But this is a McLaren, not a Prius.

As is the case with many sports cars, the McLaren GT hasn't been rated for safety or crashworthiness by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

What stands out: Taking flight

Driving or riding in a car with a monocoque chassis doesn't feel quite like anything else. Because the structure is one solid piece, the whole car sort of behaves that way too. Going over a bump in a normal car splits the action in two: impact on the front wheels and then, a second later, impact on the rear wheels.

In the GT, bumps did not feel like this. Whatever affected the front was felt immediately throughout the entire car, similar to how turbulence feels when you're flying. The GT may be the "practical" McLaren, but it's maintained the wonderfully distinctive soaring sensation that other McLaren models have perfected. Your imagination wanders from merely cruising on the highway at 70 mph to gliding along in a low-flying fighter jet.

This might seem dumb (to some) but I love it when cars have well-machined components in high-touch areas. The paddle shifters in the McLaren GT, for example, are a delight.

A post shared by Kristen Lee (@kristenleeeeeeee) on Nov 4, 2020 at 12:24pm PSTNov 4, 2020 at 12:24pm PST

But tug on the left-hand transmission paddle — machined magnificently from what felt like a single piece of metal — and the dual-clutch snaps the gears down faster than a whip-crack. Punch in the accelerator and you've punched yourself straight for the horizon, the sound of those twin-turbos whooshing behind your head. 

The GT's pièce de résistance, however, is its steering. It uses a electro-hydraulically assisted steering system, so there's no artificial feel — typically associated with electronically assisted steering — to worry about here. There's weight to it, but it's welcomed weight because you're able to tuck the nose precisely and directly into a corner every single time. Wondering what the front wheels are up to is for the birds, baby.

And the trunks. At first, the idea of a McLaren with extra storage room seemed gimmicky to me. But as it turns out, the rear cabin does fit a good amount of stuff. The front trunk eats up your average-sized overhead suitcase. And there's a decent-sized parcel shelf right behind the passengers that fits a larger-sized overhead suitcase. Putting anything there severely restricts your rearward visibility, though.

The rest of the storage cabin is admittedly strangely shaped: It slopes over the engine compartment, while the "ceiling" is shaped by the tapered rear glass hatch closure. Whatever you put back there needs to be irregularly shaped or able to be compacted. 

Don't worry, though: McLaren has a bespoke, four-piece luggage set, exclusively designed to fit in the GT, available for purchase. Yours for about $15,000, or nearly the base price of that Elantra.

What falls short: Room for luggage and that's about it

There's no denying that the McLaren GT is a huge car. It's long and wide, and the up-swinging dihedral doors add about another two feet of width on either side. Unless you have a very big and tall space, this car will be a challenge to fit in most garages.

But despite how big the GT is from the outside, there aren't actually a whole lot of places to put loose items — purses, phones, keys, masks — once you're sitting in it. There are small door pockets and a couple of cup holders, but that's about it.

The interior layout, while providing ample luggage room and a space-age feel, was not great for small everyday things. 

Did the people who designed the GT not carry loose items with them? Or did they perhaps merely have the privilege of owning clothes that come with real pockets and designed the car for this very same demographic? Unclear.

There's also the backup camera footage, which doesn't appear in the center infotainment screen as one would expect. Instead, it shows up in the driver information cluster, which is a nice idea until you remember you also need to steer in reverse sometimes.

In the GT, I felt like I was driving on eggshells. This wasn't only because of its $237,930 price, but because I had trouble seeing out of it. 

Girl, let me tell you: You sit low and those fenders are tall. The hood slopes down and out of your line of sight. The vast rear end stretches out of your eye kingdom. On open stretches of highway, this is no problem at all. But life isn't all big, sweeping roads, Chuck! Sometimes it's tight parking lots and cramped streets.

My greatest fear was curbing one of the lovely wheels — giant in diameter and shod with extremely low-profile Pirelli P-Zeros. A rolling risk, a constant test of my depth perception. Half of my driving around town relied on my own estimations, the other on faith alone. 

How the GT compares to its competitors: The only one of its kind

Because the McLaren GT bills itself as a grand tourer, there is no shortage of competition. Most of it will be cheaper, though, because most of it isn't as cool.

Base MSRP of the GT comes to $215,500, but after options such as the electrochromic roof ($6,000), the MSO Bright Pack ($5,500; whatever that is), polished brake calipers with a black logo ($1,500), a luggage retention strap ($500; I could make this with a bungee cord), lithium-ion battery charger ($230; why?), warning triangle and first-aid kit ($100), car cover ($600), sports exhaust ($3,500), and Viridian exterior paint ($4,500), the final MSRP came to $237,930.

Sure, you've got your Bentley Continental GTs ($207,825), Aston Martin DB11s ($205,600), Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupes ($171,400), Porsche 911 Turbo S models ($203,500), and Ferrari GTC4 Lusso Ts ($263,750), but none of them have the same flair as the McLaren. 

They don't have swooping doors, the hammerhead-like face, the alien-looking interior, or a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis. This McLaren has presence and it's made by people who know how to build fast things. If you're going to drop close to a quarter of a million dollars on a supercar that can also carry golf clubs, you can't really beat this one.

Our impressions: Performance over comfort

Thinking about the McLaren a month later, the thing I remember most is how much effort driving it commanded. I don't mean that it's difficult to drive, but rather that everything you touched to get it moving or stopping felt tight and purposeful. 

You had to push a little harder on the brake and throttle pedals. The steering was always heavy, no matter the speed or drive mode, complementing the chassis wonderfully. The GT's exterior design might be a touch mellower, more streamlined, and less holey than the rest of McLaren's cars, but underneath, it's soft like softballs are "soft."

Toss it into tight turns and the suspension staunchly refuses to lean, a mountain that refuses to bow to centrifugal force. The unshakable steering feels out the road like you're sweeping your palm across it.

I didn't find the sound of the twin-turbocharged V8 particularly beautiful, but it was neat to hear the turbochargers whoosh. Strangely, though, the 612-horsepower GT felt pretty tame. It's not slow by any means, but it doesn't lay into its power as ferociously as other McLarens do. 

Perhaps this had to do with being turbocharged, as I detected some lag — or maybe the sensation of having your face torn off isn't the GT's M.O. This is the long-distance McLaren, remember, not the face-tearing sprinter. 

But it's clear, especially when you consider everything it's up against, that McLaren still values performance over comfort. Distilled, the GT is a mid-engined car and with carbon-fiber tub — bones that make sense, because it was built by a company that has only ever known race cars and seismically fast road cars. The GT will never shed the driving characteristics that those basic qualities bring; it simply has a bigger trunk and a less bitey personality than the other McLarens. 

So, sure, the McLaren GT might be a "grand tourer." But don't get into one expecting it to shroud you in pillowy opulence. 

Instead, get into one knowing that it's just as capable as any McLaren — and totally down to whisk you and (some of) your baggage away on a weekend trip.

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