Driving McLaren’s new plug-in hybrid supercar, the 2023 Artura

Enlarge / You might think this looks like any other McLaren. But the Artura is a clean-sheet design with a new plug-in hybrid EV powertrain. And a total output of 671 hp. (credit: McLaren)

McLaren provided flights from DC to Malaga and back, plus two nights in a hotel, so we could drive the Artura at Ascari Race Resort. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

Since the launch of the McLaren MP4-12C in 2011, all the company's road cars have fundamentally used different variants of the same V8 engine and similar versions of the same carbon fiber monocoque chassis. But 11 years is a long time in the life cycle of an automotive platform, and now the British supercar maker has a shiny new toy called the Artura.

It's a clean-sheet design, powered by a plug-in hybrid EV powertrain with an all-new V6 engine augmented by a hybrid electric motor, with perhaps the best-looking interior of any McLaren to date and a raft of technology upgrades that should improve the experience without compromising driver engagement. And unlike McLaren's last PHEV, the multimillion-dollar P1, the Artura replaces the brand's previous entry-level supercar, the 570, so it starts at a (reasonable for a McLaren) $233,000.

New monocoque

Perhaps surprisingly for a company that pioneered the use of carbon fiber chassis in Formula 1 and then again with the F1 road car of 1993, McLaren Automotive has historically contracted the production of its carbon fiber monocoque tubs to an Austrian company called CarboTech. But with the advent of this new platform, called the McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture (MCLA), that work is being done in-house at a new facility in Sheffield in northern England.

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