Too long have I sat here, staring at photos of cars in that shade of blue McLaren does so well, sad that I will likely never graduate past a previous-generation Mazda Miata in terms of sports-car price points. But all of that is in the past, from a time when I was foolish and my dreams weren’t big enough.
You see, now I know the truth. I know that there is an affordable supercar out there for me, even if the interior isn’t exactly an “interior” and my legs might need to scrunch like a foldable card table in order to fit. But that’s a small price to pay to be held in such high regard by everyone around.
This solution I’ve found is a McLaren 720S that starts at $400, without the extra three zeros—meaning, according to McLaren, that someone could buy 700 of these for the price of a real 720S Coupé. This version might be a little slower than the more expensive 720S, but the thrill of speed is subjective, and I won’t have you raining on my supercar parade (even if it is a literal parade, because it’s so slow).
Fine, fine. Technically this car is for children, but McLaren implies in the video above that full-size adults can cram themselves in and set off on an admittedly slow journey without sending a hissing crack down the middle of it. That’s good enough for me.
The electric kid car has an accelerator pedal with added engine sounds so that the kids don’t have to make them with their mouths (that involves a lot of spit, I bet), and parents can control it with a remote if they’d like. There are brake lights, too, so that nobody gets rear ended if all of the kids on the block have big supercar gatherings on the weekends.
This kiddie 720S is a lot like a regular vehicle, though, in that McLaren said it has an infotainment system—an infotainment system, compared to the radio in my actual, life-size car with an internal combustion engine—with buttons on the dashboard. The system can play music and “short” movies, and the car’s programmed with a bunch of popular songs for 6 year olds, which isn’t super friendly to older audiences that might be interested in buying one (me).
Also unlike most of our cars, this 720S for children has dihedral doors, because doors that open straight out like the ones on your average commuter car aren’t good enough. There are “exposed carbon-style elements,” too, which might not save as much weight as the real thing, but hey.
Sure, this entire gimmick of McLarens for the Kids—of which this isn’t the first iteration—is for the sole purpose of building a “brand identity” with the “young audience,” because we’re met with an onslaught of ads as soon as we enter this shamelessly brand-oriented world. But that’s life, and we should make the most of it. If I have to walk through airports with so many ad screens that they could easily be confused with Times Square, I might as well be able to benefit from the concept of brand awareness by joking online about how I can afford a McLaren.
It’s the small victories, you know?