McLaren Solus GT turns virtual into 200mph rule-breaking reality

Sports Car News

From PlayStation 4 concept car to limited edition reality: the McLaren Solus GT is a £3m+ recreation of a Gran Turismo design, with a production run of 25 that's already sold out

McLaren Solus GT front three quarter view
Andrew Frankel

I guess it was only a matter of time. With Aston Martin producing the Valkyrie AMR Pro, Red Bull the similarly-Adrian Newey influenced RB17 and the left-field newbie that is New Zealand’s Rodin FZero, McLaren always looked likely to join this most exclusive of gangs. The gang, that is, of manufacturers producing cars that can neither be raced nor registered for the road, yet upon which customers are still prepared to lavish multiples of millions to secure. And then, quite possibly, never use. It is indeed a funny old world.

McLaren’s contribution is called the Solus GT and it is perhaps more interesting than most given that it is neither a clean sheet design like the RB17 and FZero, nor a track version of an established road car like the Valkyrie. Visually it is the kind of fantasy machine that looks like it should only exist inside a computer game, a flight of fancy of the kind beloved by those who treat their PlayStations like an additional limb. And this is no coincidence at all. For far from being the kind of machine that might enjoy a second life in the virtual world, it is a car invented for the virtual world enjoying a second life in the real one.

McLaren Solus GT rear three quarter view

The Solus GT is said to generate over 1200kg of downforce — more than the car's 1,000kg weight

McLaren Solus GT front view

Wraparound windscreen promises a 180-degree field of vision

McLaren Solus GT rear

A full-length diffuser adds to the Solus GT's downforce levels

The Solus GT actually came into existence five years ago – if that is even the right word – as the McLaren Ultimate Vision, a computer-generated car that existed within the Gran Turismo SPORT game designed in 2017 for the PlayStation 4. Now, you can buy a re-conditioned PS4 for around £150 and the game for less than a tenner. Or, for something the eye-watering side of £3 million, and assuming you are one of McLaren’s very best 25 customers, next year they will deliver the real thing to your door, complete with a flight case full of tools and pre-heating equipment that means you might even be able to use it. To that end, they’ll also mould a seat to your specific shape, provide some race gear and even lay on events that allow you to push it to whosever’s limit arrives first, that of the owner or the car.

It is, in all honesty, rather more likely to be the former than the latter. If you’re interested in headlines, the Solus GT weighs less than 1000kg but develops greater than 1200kg of downforce, which isn’t much by Formula 1 standards, but pretty mighty by any others. And you may be surprised to learn that, unlike every other McLaren ‘special’ from the P1 to the Speedtail and Elva, the Solus is not powered by a version of its long-serving twin turbo V8. In fact it’s not a V8 at all, nor is it turbocharged. It is instead a naturally aspirated, 5.2-litre V10 engine, producing at least 829bhp and no fewer than 10,000 rpm. Which should sound quite interesting.

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I understand the engine is not McLaren’s own design, but one created for it by Engine Developments Ltd, better known to most people as Judd. And it would seem related to the GV V10 motor that first saw service in sports car racing back in 2004 and has since provided Judd customers with numerous podium positions at Le Mans and won then European Le Mans series outright. So while it may not be a McLaren engine per se, it should certainly prove more than fit for purpose.

But actually, and perhaps unusually for such cars where track performance always seems the ultimate aim, the Solus GT appears to want to appeal as much for its sci-fi design as its race-bred engineering. There are some fairly meaningless performance claims (0-62mph in 2.5sec, top speed over 200mph for what very little they’re worth), but you’ll find no claim anywhere for it to be ‘as fast as a Formula 1 car’ or similar. And there are two clear reasons for that, the first and most obvious being that it won’t be. Nor even close. Heavier, less powerful and with a fraction of the downforce of the real thing, the Solus would clearly not see which way a modern F1 car had gone, as if that were in any way important. No lap times, even simulations, are claimed. Instead its purpose is bring all the looks, power and performance of an imaginary car conceived without rules for  the PlayStation generation and make it real.

Which is why it’s a single seater and why you access the cockpit not via anything as mundane as a door but by sliding the canopy forward and going in over the top, jet-fighter style. Once inside, the controls are very much akin to those of a Formula racing car with information displayed via digital display mounted on the steering wheel. Rear vision is achieved via a camera system.

McLaren Solus GT overhead

Sidepods house the Solus GT's radiators

McLaren Solus GT cockpit

Canopy incorporates an escape hatch in case the sliding mechanism fails

McLaren Solus GT overhead rear view

Teardrop-shaped pods help to control turbulent air from the wheels

Elsewhere it’s all race-car spec: the engine is rigidly mounted, the suspension has a part-magnesium casing. The  tub goes through pre-preg preparation for greater strength and uniformity, the suspension is operated by pullrods, the brakes are not carbon ceramic but less practical carbon/carbon items and there’s printed titanium extensively used particularly in the halo and roll-over bar. Which is probably the least you can expect for your three mill.

It’s a shame there’ll be precious little chance even to see a Solus GT in action let alone engaged in the pursuit to which it seems so well suited on paper, namely racing. But such cars are not for professional racing drivers, but wealthy customers, many of whom will be motivated both by carrot – the thought they have something other wealthy people cannot buy for any amount unless offered to them – and the stick, namely the fear that if they don’t buy this one, they may not be on the list next time around.

McLaren Solus GT side view

The Solus GT’s 5.2-litre V10 engine produces more than 829bhp

And it does beg the question as to where the owner of the Valkyrie Pro, RB17, FZero and Solus GT goes next – and yes, you can bet your life there will be some who’ve ordered all four. I reckon Craig Breedlove could knock up a short run of continuation Spirit of America Land Speed Record cars with guaranteed 500mph top speeds. They’d be twice as fast as anything named above, can also be used neither for road or racing but only on special tracks and would probably cost little or no more to create. And that really would be something to put in your heated, dehumidified, hermetically sealed shed.

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