Swapping 458 for 675LT or Speciale?

LTs seem to be built much tighter than the other McLaren models as well. Fit and finish is very good. These were expensive cars new.

 

my respected mclaren consiglieri say 675lt over 720s

 

The Pista is undeniably faster than the 675 LT - until the 720S McLaren was more about drama than efficiency, with similar tires a regular 488 GTB is about as fast on a track as a 675 LT. Which says a lot about the engineering skills available with each brand (although for Ferrari, it's difficult to notice in the F1 department).

 

I'm a fan of Frank Stephenson's work, 675LT is up there.

 

I liked the 675LT alot. Almost bought one.

I like the Speciale alot. Fantastic beast, esp. on track.

The engine makes the Speciale, well, special.

Everything but the engine makes the 675LT special.

Tough choice.

But if one were to simply look at QPR, then relative to one another, the Speciale is overpriced and the 675LT is underpriced.

Enjoy the hunt.

 

Lost me @#7

 

I can 100% say that is not correct. I had a 488 spider and drove it for 1000’s of miles with my friend in his LT spider. They are near identical in performance. We never drove them together on track so maybe the 675 has it there but looking at the various track times you can find online, they are still similar. We also swapped on occasion. The 675 is more intimate and has a much sharper front end response and grip. Pista is better again in this department. Speciale is special (still own ours after 13,000 miles). It is beautiful, aggressive, more playful than the 675, sounds and responds to the throttle much better. It is only a touch slower than the 675. Put it this way, a half-decent driver in a Speciale easily leaves a lesser driver in a 675. Both are great but I couldn’t ever buy a 675 over a Speciale. My LT owning friend has a Speciale that he hasn’t sold either. The LT is still with him. He loves it but has lost so much on it that he dare not sell it, which is different.

 

To me, the LT feels faster than the Pista due its dramatic power delivery. Both are still clawing for traction into 3rd gear so I care not which is actually faster since I already have one foot in jail.

I do find the Pista to be more playful with the throttle because of its more immediate response.

 

I would have to agree with Jo Stay 7 that the 675LT outperforms the 488 by all objective metrics -- laptimes (forgetting for a moment that the various times one sees online are set at different times by different drivers, but whatever, this is the Internet), horsepower, torque, power to weight ratio, etc.

So if one were to take either car on a track, yes, the 675LT would would wup up a can of woopass against the 488, but as a daily driver or even as a weekend canyon carver, I think the 488 outperforms the Mclaren simply because (1) the engine is better and (2) it's just a more comfortable ride, even with Mclaren's trick F1 suspension on the 675LT.

I think the more apt comparison to the 488 is some sort of combo between the 650 and 720, a car that does not exist because the the 650 came out before the 488, and the 720 after. Too bad.

The 675LT was and is really a special car, however.

Can't wait to see what the 765LT brings. Yum.

 

I’ve not driven a 488 but my thoughts are as a daily driver the 488 would be better because of the ease of entry and larger cabin but I’m pretty sure ride wise it would lack the sophisticated ride feel of the 675(it rides better than my M6 GC). As a weekend canyon carver no way, just reference my post above with owners of Pista’s and Speciale’s that rank the 675 ahead let alone a 488. The 675 feels like a totally bespoke super car that was not engineered for mass consumption. Sorry

 

On a track it may have a small advantage, but remember, these track specials are not as ‘track fast’ as you think compared with their standard variants. I have seen it on track regularly - a Speciale is only tenths quicker than a 458 on most tracks (I have driven both many times on track), an RS only slightly quicker than a GT3 (also have direct experience of this, as well as reported information) and a 675 only very slightly quicker than a 650. On the road, these differences basically disappear completely. The track specials have a small advantage in pace but a very big advantage in feel - very clever and good marketing from the manufacturers (sells me every time!)

JoSta said “the 488 is not near the 675 in terms of performance” - I know that it is. I would not say the 488 is faster or even quite as fast (although one of the main magazines did a back-to-back with the two cars on the same day and got identical lap times - it was EVO at Anglesey from memory). I have another friend who dragged his LT against a 488 over a mile on an unrestricted road, there was about 6 or 7 car lengths difference in favour of the LT over a mile. When you average the major test magazines’ times, the two cars are identical to 140km/h (5s) after which the LT slowly pulls away. Two circuits where both cars have magazine lap times see the LT ahead, the other 4 or 5 see them very close or the same (and the two being outliers, Vairano is a handling circuit, which would clearly favour the sharper LT, and I have no idea why such a difference at Willow, could be different surface conditions).

Speed/pace is not the way for the OP to settle which is the better driving tool but feel definitely is IMO. The LT certainly feels more scalpel-like compared with a 488, the 488 has a significantly better engine and power delivery. Against the Speciale it is not a dissimilar story. The LT is precise, the Speciale engaging, responsive and playful, both feel fantastic on track. I would always choose the Speciale because of the playfulness, sound and response. If you only want the faster lap time you probably need the LT.
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None of the Pista/675 owners I know say that. The 675 is widely acknowledged to be a real stand-out car, but the Pista has better grip, better power delivery and much more power. The 675 holds no advantage in sound and the Pista is a generation newer. McLaren will most likely leapfrog the Pista (and the LT) with the 765 but the generally held view is that the Pista is an amazing machine, perhaps not as significant a car for Ferrari as the 675LT was for McLaren, but a better, newer generation car. Nothing wrong with preferring an older car from another brand ‘just because’ though. Doesn’t make it objectively better however. As an aside, the Pista’s time is 2 seconds faster on Anglesey by EVO, which is pretty impressive. It seems too large a gap tbh so there must have been other conditions in the Ferrari’s favour. The Pista feels amazing at speed though, at least as good as the LT.

 

That’s just marketing I’m afraid. And they built 1,000 of them, far more than they promised, irritating many many. people over on Maclife. For a young manufacturer they built them far too much on a mass scale, hence the value issues (especially for the new purchasers, I have two friends who bought new and still have their cars for the same reason - they can’t stomach the drop.) One subsequently added a Pista and much prefers it, the other wanted a Pista but couldn’t get one without paying over (and being from Yorkshire, wouldn’t do that! Anyone from the UK would understand... )

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way knocking the 675, which is a great car. Not for me, but friends who are top-drawer drivers and current owners have opinions which I fully trust, that this is an outstanding piece of work from McLaren, maybe their best to date.

 

Astonishing how much faster the 488 is compared to the 674 in the gears..Every acceleration in gears 4,5,6,7 is in a different league, sometimes a small fraction of the 675's times..I'm biased as i own a 488 although freely admit that the McLaren 675LT is by far my favourite McLaren and in my top ten of my favourite cars..
The 675 is a lighter more incisive tool but just imagine it with the 488's engine..Now that would be perfect.

 

Yes, but that’s really about the 488’s clever trick of lower gearing. It works very well but to get a direct comparison, look at the ‘min’ increments, which compare the time it takes each car to cover the increment in the best gear for it. It used to be that ratios were judged, taking into account that a gear change costs a lot of time, these days gear changes are very quick (feel instant but obviously aren’t) so to make a turbo feel linear in its delivery they have massive peak torque (much higher than 675) and waste some of that by reducing it in lower gears so the engine feels more naturally aspirated. Combine that with low gearing and a fast change and you can understand why the 488’s turbo delivery is nicer than the 675’s for n/a addicts. If you just want a thump in the back (ain’t nothing wrong with that!) the 675 will do that for you very well!

 

Sorry, don’t mean to bang on over a silly point, but the first guy said “one of my favourite” - I also have many of his cars and the GT2RS, Speciale, Pista, are all amazing, the 675 is absolutely not ahead of all of those cars, and I’m not sure he’s even saying that. The second guy is clearly a Mac fanatic (absolutely fine) but anyone who puts a 12C ahead of a Speciale (again, I’ve owned both) and a Carrera GT, Speciale and 997 GT3RS comfortably behind a 650, at the very least that has to be considered an outlier view.

You can always find outlier views but when you look generally, Speciale and 675 are well matched, different cars. Hard to be definitive when saying one is better. It will come down to what feels best to you, what you want to pay, what you want to lose and, yes, what badge you want on the front. That’s why these conversations, while interesting can only really be answered by the prospective buyer parking his/her backside in the driver’s seat and pressing the pedals (with the engine turned on, obviously).

 

Ahaha was thinking the same

 

Ultimately, the car that addresses more fully, one’s preferences and priorities and causes the widest grin on one’s face, is the “better” one.

 

Excuse me: this is the internet sensible answers are not wanted !

 

At this point with cars in this class unless you are competitively tracking the cars outright acceleration and lap times is irrelevant. All these cars are borderline too fast so the difference is in the execution of the rest the dynamics of the car and that’s is where the 675 has won so many long time enthusiasts over because they managed to leverage all their engineering expertise to make a truly special feeling car. I gave up on modern sports cars because it’s become all about horsepower and lap times but the 675 feeling of connection to the driving experience is unmatched in its class.

 

New answer- Buy a car without ever driving it and rely solely on the advice of those on the internet. Can't go wrong. Nothing is as rewarding as satisfying the anonymous posters on a chat group.

 

I bought my 675 with only experiencing a 650 and that worked out well but I would recommend driving a car before purchase.