McLaren Artura Review: Three Days With the Spider in Los Angeles

The Artura Spider, by the numbers	Figure	What kind of number that is
Power, V6 and electric motor together	690 bhp	McLaren’s figure: 700 PS. The V6 alone makes 605 PS, the motor 95 PS.
Torque	530 lb ft	McLaren’s figure, 720 Nm. The motor fills in before the turbos wake.
0–62 mph	3.0 s	McLaren’s figure. Rear-wheel drive.
Top speed	205 mph	McLaren’s figure, 330 km/h. Academic on any road here.
Roof	11 s	One-piece hard top, electric, and it works at up to 31 mph.
Kerb weight	1,560 kg	McLaren’s DIN figure, about 3,440 lb, ready to drive.
Gearbox	8-speed	Dual-clutch, with no reverse gear: the electric motor backs the car up.
Price new	$273,800	The 2025 Spider’s US starting price, as reported by Motor1.

The car this review is about McLaren Artura Spider Black, orange calipers, a black cabin piped in orange. Doors that lift, a roof that disappears, and silence when you want it. Dates and rate →

What is the McLaren Artura?

It is the McLaren that plugs in. A twin-turbo V6 and an electric motor share the work, and the result is a supercar that can be silent, quick or both in the same mile.

The engine is a new 3.0-litre V6 with its banks set 120 degrees apart and the two turbochargers sitting inside the vee; behind it is an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox with no conventional reverse gear, because the electric motor does the reversing. That motor is an axial-flux unit built into the gearbox bell housing, fed by a 7.4 kWh battery, and the whole car sits on McLaren’s carbon-fibre tub, the McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture. The coupé was revealed in February 2021 and went into production in 2022.

The Spider followed in 2024 with more power for everyone. McLaren’s launch release gives it 700 PS, or 690 bhp, 0–62 mph in 3.0 seconds and 205 mph, and says each car is hand-assembled at the McLaren Production Centre in Woking. Motor1 adds the rest: gearshifts 25 per cent quicker than before, a damping system that reacts up to 90 per cent faster, carbon-ceramic brakes, and 136 lb more than the coupé for the roof that folds. That roof is the reason to choose the Spider in this city, and the reason ours is one.

Day one: the hotel drive, E-mode and the garage

The first thing the Artura does is nothing, audibly. E-mode is the default when you start it, so a car with a twin-turbo V6 behind the seats rolls out of a Beverly Hills hotel drive, or a hillside garage at seven in the morning, on electricity, with no more noise than the tyres. Reversing out of a space is electric too, because there is no reverse gear. For a city where the neighbours are close and the valet stand is quiet, this is the single most useful thing about the car.

The second thing is the doors. They are dihedral, swinging up and forward, and McLaren designed them to open close to the body so that getting in and out works in tight parking spaces. In practice it means a narrow bay in a Century City structure is not a problem: open the door upward, step over the sill, sit down. The sill is wide; put a hand on the roof frame on the way in and it becomes a single movement by the second time.

The car is low, so take driveway lips and the ramps of older garages at an angle and at walking pace. Valets in this city know the shape; hand them the key, mention the angle, and the car comes back to the front of the row.

Day two: the canyons with the roof down

Out of the city, the car changes character. In Sport and Track McLaren sharpens the gearshift strategy, and the V6 and the motor work together: the motor fills in underneath the turbos, so there is no wait between asking and going, and Track mode recharges the battery fastest, which puts the electric miles back for the drive home.

Mulholland at dawn, then the Angeles Crest Highway, is the day the Artura was built for. On the tight sections the carbon tub and the low weight make it feel smaller than it is, and the carbon-ceramic brakes are made for the long descents. With the roof folded the V6 is right behind your head, which is a great deal of the reason to choose the Spider; with it up, the cabin is calm enough to talk. The best roads near Los Angeles sets out which canyon suits which hour.

Day three: the roof, the luggage and the evening

The roof is a one-piece electric hard top, and it opens or closes in 11 seconds at up to 31 mph, so a light that turns green halfway through is not a problem. On the Pacific Coast Highway that turns into a habit: roof down in the sun at Malibu, up again for the cooler air after dark, without stopping either time.

Luggage is the one thing to plan. It is a two-seater with a luggage compartment in the nose, sized for soft bags rather than hard cases; two people with weekend bags fit, two people with large suitcases send the cases ahead. At the airport the VIP tier, with the car waiting at the terminal, is the one that earns its money on a two-seater.

And the evening is the Artura’s other trick. Arrive at a restaurant on electricity, doors up at the kerb, and the car makes its entrance without a sound; leave with the V6 awake. Nothing else at the valet stand does both.

Who the Artura suits

Two people with a weekend and a road in mind. A driver who wants a McLaren for the driving rather than the photograph, although the black car with its doors up handles the photograph too. Someone for whom a supercar is a first, because the hybrid makes the slow parts calm and the quick parts easy to reach. A guest staying at a hillside house or a quiet hotel, where silence on the way out at dawn is worth more than any figure in the table.

Four people and their luggage want a different shape; that is a job for a super-SUV, and the Artura is the car for the two of you on the day after.

Drive the Artura Spider in Los Angeles

Ours is the black Artura Spider, with orange calipers and a black cabin piped in orange, at $1,350/day. It arrives hand-detailed at your hotel, your home or the terminal. The Artura Spider’s own page carries the live calendar, and how McLaren came to build it is in the story of the most expensive McLarens.

What it costs, and how it reaches you

The Artura Spider carries a $2,000 refundable deposit, back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The live rate and any multi-day price are on the car’s own page.

Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the shuttle out to it, or $300 both ways VIP, where it is at the terminal when you walk out — half that for one direction. Anything past the mileage allowance is charged per mile at the rate written into your agreement. The rest is in the terms.