All week McLaren has been playing coy, announcing its newest supercar, but releasing only a close-up image of the vehicles signature 650s designation. This week, however, it looks like the wait until the March 4 opening of the Geneva Auto Show has proven too difficult for the British automaker. New images and even a video have surfaced, giving us a better look at this new "mid-range" supercar.
The 650 in McLaren's newest vehicle's name, it turns out, comes from its power output. The 650s puts out a sizable 650PS, which translates roughly to 641 horsepower. The PS stands for Pferdestärke, a German unit of measurement dating back to the turn of the century. All that power is produced by a 3.8-liter turbocharged V8 engine. Combined with some improved aerodynamics, a re-tooled powertrain and improved suspension, the new engine definitely rates the 650s above McLaren's "every-day" model, the 12C.
What the 650s doesn't quite measure up to is the 727 horsepower of McLaren's sold-out P1 hypercar, of which only 375 were made. Already, auto industry officials are calling the 650s the "baby P1" — a term which doesn't quite do this $335,000 car justice. McLaren has even stated that much of the design that went into the $1,447,606 P1 informed their design of the new 650s. With an acceleration of 0-125 miles per hour in just 8.4 seconds, we're inclined to agree with them. From here on in, we'll think of the McLaren 650s as that awesome kid brother the P1 has been waiting for.
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