The McLaren Speedtail Has the World's Best Car Configurator

Unfortunately, you can only use it if you buy a Speedtail.


If you're one of the 106 people who ordered a McLaren Speedtail, you really don't want to pick the wrong color. Most likely, that won't happen because the Speedtail has the ultimate car configurator—the only problem is that you have to go to McLaren's Woking, England headquarters to use it.

If you're the sort of person who can waste embarrassing amounts of time speccing out fantasy cars online—and if you're reading this website, there's a good chance you are—the Speedtail's "configurator" is what dreams are made of. After it showed off the Speedtail at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, McLaren invited us to experience a sort of version of the Speedtail's configurator for ourselves. Here's what we learned.

If you've got a Speedtail on order, things kick off with a three-hour meeting at McLaren HQ with either Jo Lewis, the brand's head of color and materials, or one of her deputies. There, you'll get a preview of, well, everything. Paint samples, leather types, carbon-fiber weaves and colors, seat embroideries, and even precious metals for the badges.

Some highlights: There are multiple leather options, including natural leathers that wear over time, and one that's around 30 percent lighter than the traditional stuff you see in cars. Of course, the leather can be dyed or painted any color you like, and there are various embossings and embroideries with patterns inspired by the Speedtail's reverse-teardrop shape.

McLaren's thing is carbon fiber, so there are lots of different types available for the Speedtail. You can have carbon with a thin layer of titanium placed on top to give it a unique coloration, while the wood-esque material is actually thin layers of the stuff with quartz added for color.


And if you want your front badge to be made from precious metals, 24-karat gold and platinum are available as options. Expensive options—I was told the platinum badge McLaren brought to the demo cost over €50,000 (roughly $56,000).

Since time was limited, McLaren put teams of journalists to configure a car together. Ours started with a regular exterior color called Saros, a metallic gray-blue with hints of green in certain light. The color was adapted and modified in a software called Unreal Engine by a man who creates a realistic rendering of what your car will look like at the end of the day.

I was put in charge of interior color choices. I went with blue leather as the primary color, with a vintage tan for the central drivers seat. For the original McLaren F1—the Speedtail's three-seat predecessor—designer Gordon Murray specified a contrasting color for the driver's seat, to draw the eye towards the car's unusual layout. I thought that'd be a nice way to pay homage to the original.

My group's car turned out pretty well, given the time constraint plus the fact that it was multiple people all trying to make aesthetic decisions. With three hours alone with McLaren's designers, there's very little chance you'll end up with the wrong color combo. Lewis told me that while the customer obviously gets what they want, she'll help steer them in the right direction if need be. And if you doubt her abilities, check out the silver-blue show car McLaren used to show off the Speedtail to the world for the first time—the spec was all her.

And, that three-hour meeting isn't all—McLaren will hold a second meeting with customers after they've had some time away to think about their configurations and pore over the renderings. Then, the spec of the car will be finalized, ready to enter production (which begins in a few month's time, when the Senna and Senna GTR are finished).

Just based on my taste of the Speedtail's amazing "configurator," I can tell you that speccing one out is an amazing experience, but that's sort of what you expect from a car that costs over $2 million. At that price point, you're not simply buying a car; you're buying into an experience and you demand only the best. It's not picking up a car off a dealer lot.

If it were up to me, I'd have a green one.


Update 4/2/19: An earlier version of this story indicated that the renderings were created in Photoshop. They're actually created with Unreal Engine. We regret the error.

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