I will start by saying, that at least aesthetically, I am still trying to figure out if I like the real McLaren 720S. Some of you might agree, many of you will passionately disagree, and so be it. Hopefully we don’t all like and dislike the same thing.
But the 720S doesn’t do it for me. Granted if I had one in the garage you wouldn’t hear me complain, but I am just another nerd with an opinion and device to express it on. McLaren states that every contour on the car is created for a purpose, and I am sure that is true. Still, for the most part, there are other McLarens that float by boat a bit more.
I would imagine that with any current McLaren, shrinking it down to 1/64 is particularly difficult, with all the waves and swooshes. All those rounded edges are what makes Porsches so difficult to shrink as well. And like Hot Wheels Porsches, that means a lot of hits and a few misses. And to me, this 720S is like the HW Porsche Boxster. It’s a miss.
It’s a cab-forward McLaren, but I see a first-gen Tiburon. It is mainly because of that thick backside. Strangely, that is what came to mind the first time I saw the model, and what surprised my most is how and why the TIBURON popped in my head. The Tiburon? Have I ever thought about the gosh-darned Tiburon? Maybe that is why I don’t like this model. All my time is valuable, and I don’t need to waste it thinking about a late-90’s blob, and this McLaren made me do so. I even had to waste energy looking up the Tiburon on Wikipedia. I’ll never get that back.
Some angles of the casting work, and others don’t. The wheel well in the back looks too small, but I can see how a large rear wheel would look too big, like on the P1. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There are limitations in Hot Wheels basic, and maybe that is one of them. A slightly larger wheel would work better.
I don’t fancy Lamley a diecast review site. I don’t have a list of models I need to review, like a movie critic will watch everything. I tend to enjoy writing and talking about the stuff I like. But that also means anticipated models can disappoint. This one does. While the real car doesn’t totally work for me, I will always anticipate a licensed supercar casting. Like the Porsche Boxster and others, this one disappoints.
If you disagree, have at it.
This is the best angle:
The real car is pure sex
What do you mean by pure sex?
It definitely has some good angles and some bad ones…I agree that the final pic is probably the best. I don’t share the overall disdain for the model, but I do agree that it’s a little underwhelming. I was on board with the car until I liberated it from its blister about 20 minutes ago. It’s one of those times where I just can’t put my finger on what would make it “pop” better, but it does disappoint a little. Rear tampo would have been nice, for a start.
All that said, I really can’t complain too much about a licensed supercar being added to the lineup. Keep ’em coming, there’s bound to be more hits than misses.
That’s what you get when a car body is shaped using active aerodynamic principles.
Different from yer standard superstar styling cliches…and it can take some getting used to.
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Damn spellchecker. The word is supercar .
hmm… I really like the real car, and I think the casting looks pretty good, but I think the paint doesn’t help. A deeper metallic paint would do this casting a lot of good. As for the lack of rear tampo, that’s nothing a fine tip sharpie wouldn’t fix. I think this is a model that will get better as it gets more recolors, this orange didn’t work on the P1 either, but the deep silver later on really did
At the very least, the body is accurate. That’s good enough for me. Also helps that I like the car, too.
Will definitely be a bit of a PITA to find, though (as for some reason there are licensed cars here in Manila that I thought would be popular but I now see fairly often every two weeks, like the Magnus 911, BMW M2 and a few others besides.]
Interesting…here in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, I only ever saw one Magnus 911 (the one I bought) and have yet to see an M2. As I mentioned above though, I did get this 720S yesterday, along with a bunch of its case-mates. Lucky find.
So many castings to complain about; this isn’t one. Not perfect but they pretty much nailed it. Agree that this one needs rear tampo. Looks and feels good in hand.
I did a review about HW castings. It created so much traffic to the point that my Google ads crashed. For the McLaren 720S, a recolor is all it needs. Metallic gray will do.
You know, I still remember someone once said the Matchbox Porsche Cayman looks great, when in fact, the casting was poorly executed and not in the correct proportion as the actual car. And guess what? This McLaren is being criticized for being “poorly executed” when it is actually pretty accurately replicated in this scale.
Sometimes, I wonder if Lamley even knows what they are looking at.
Keep wondering.
probably doesnt help the fact that it sits too high on its wheels. A lower stance would have made it look great. Or at least better
Its a bit too high, a bit too narrow, a bit too fat and the wheels too small. And the lack of rear details and the hideous headlight tampos (why couldn’t they just make it part of the window or interior?) isn’t helping either. Not the worst casting of the year, but definitely not the best.
Making the headlights part of the windshield would have been far worse…In the real car, most of that space represented by the tampo is actually an air intake, the headlight itself is only a small sliver.
You think I don’t know this? My reasoning for that is because the tampos are just getting uglier and uglier (just look at the ones on this 720S above. they don’t even fill the headlight area) and heaving them part of the window/ interior (plastic can be more detailed than metal) would bypass the need for tampos which could then be utilized on the rear or sides.
I like the casting. It looks accurate, which is good. The paint is nice, but I really hope for a pearl white with a less darkly tinted canopy.
The not-so-nice: It doesn’t seem like it sits on it’s base and axles quite right. The nose is a little high, and the tail is a bit low. Probably done for race-track compatibility, but that sit-up stance still stands out to me as the problem.
I am also not sure why they chose that wheel style. 10 radial spokes in a gunmetal grey, which they have used on the P1 looks more like the McLaren forged lightweight wheel. I wouldn’t argue with a FTE2 option if they still do that, although the style wouldn’t replicate OE. A rear blackout tampo would look good… and if I buy more than one, it might get sharpie treatment. (it did wonders for one of my custom 67 Firebird examples)
I wonder what this 720S would look like as a premium model, or a full-blown custom with a pearl white paint job, a metal base with the ride height corrected, a back tampo, and a set of Modern Concave Real Riders. I am not sure if a window piece can be tampo’d but some luxury configurations of the real car have a gray or smoke-chrome arched trim piece between the side windows and the roof pillars, which could add a bit of realism.
BTW… cab-forward design originated on mid-engined cars, because of the geometry of the chassis, the cabin is forward of the drivetrain. Chrysler in the 1990s popularized it by applying the principles to FWD, front-engined cars, by extending the rounded and raked windshield forward of the firewall, and pushing the door openings as far forward into the footwells as possible, to make the car look like more of a flow-formed single shape, rather than the traditional 3-box sedan and coupe forms, with a distinct hood and trunk, and other companies were doing the same things around that time.
BTW… a 720PS (710 imperial horsepower) twin turbocharged 4.0 liter V8, gearbox, hydraulically cross-linked suspension, and some of the cooling apparatus is packaged under those rear fenders, which is pretty amazing.
I thought the car looked hideous at first, because I liked the MP4-12C… but it has really grown on me as a next-generation futuristic design, almost as much as the McLaren F1 was a new aesthetic in 1992/93, rather than evolutions of past traditional designs.
I do not collect HW mainline anymore, but I like to pick some I think are worth it.
This one one is almost one of them.
We should be happy to have models like this one, with no ugly front chin, no big rear wheels, a good tampowork …
It is indeed a very hard to catch car for a designer, but for me we have all we need to have for a §1 car.
It is not a bad model at all, in my opinion …
They should of done the bugatti chiron instead of this McLaren because the McLaren 720s design is a bit boring, hope they do the bugatti chiron next year in the light and dark blue that would be a cool hot wheels car.
The design and shapes of the real car doesn’t evoke much excitement for me , but as for the casting by HW I think they pretty much nailed it.
My only criticism would be the need for a better wheel choice and some rear tampos
What makes the model look off? No side-view mirrors.
I have to say from the above spotlight photos I am feeling pretty good about this one. I’ve been greatly anticipating this model since it was announced and it looks like I will not be disappointed. Is it perfect? No, but for me at least, there are no glaring errors. It’s missing the rear tampo, the wheels aren’t the best (though not hideous) and the fenders may be a tad thick, but overall I feel they nailed the proportions. Now I don’t yet have this model in hand, so I am basing my remarks on the above photos. It’s a bit tough to judge width and height from these, but nothing is screaming, “wrong”.
For me, this is the best looking of all current McLarens. I know there are others who disagree, but styling is after all highly subjective. Each model has it’s highlights styling wise, but also many detractions. I personally love the clean, svelte, sensuous form of the 720S, free from all the gashes and disruptions in the flowing lines. And thank goodness, finally a break from the crescent headlamps and boomerang nose!