Keeping Desire Under Control

McLaren unveils the McL 6GT, and suddenly the future feels surprisingly like the past. Three pedals. A proper gear lever. V8. Rear-wheel drive. Hydraulic steering. Plenty of carbon fibre, very little digital fuss. Plus a shape that doesn’t look as though the wind tunnel team had a quick go at the design after work. Low-slung, wide, with smooth lines and a comb-shaped rear. A car that fires the imagination even when it’s standing still.

Of course, there’s a story behind it. In the late 1960s, Bruce McLaren wanted to develop his own supercar for the road based on the M6A Can-Am racing car. Very fast, very light, low-slung and uncompromising. He drove the prototype himself, even to the office. Following his untimely death in 1970, the project remained unfinished. The McL 6GT now revives this idea. With a carbon monocoque, a carbon body and modern engineering, plus controls whose appearance has clearly been given just as much attention as their function. And, delightfully, it makes very little of a retro fuss about it. Bruce McLaren’s signature in the engine bay, the Speedy Kiwi symbol – the first trademark in McLaren’s history – on the fuel cap and gear lever: a reminder, yes. But coupled with a rather clever question: what have we actually been missing amidst all this progress?

The answer can be found clearly between the seats.

Gear changes.

By yourself.

You have to savour that for a moment. Whilst progress in supercars has for years primarily meant ‘more’ – more power, more aero, more computing power, more driving modes – McLaren is rediscovering the value of an action here.

McLaren speaks of a deliberately physical, immediate driving experience. The rediscovery of closeness, feel and immediacy. A mechanical watch doesn’t tell the time any better. A manual gearbox doesn’t change gear any faster than a modern dual-clutch transmission.

So what?

We’re talking about pleasure here. About the little joy of shifting into gear smoothly. About the resistance in the gear lever. About the weight of the steering. About an engine whose condition you can sense with your hands, feet and bum. About that marvellous feeling that, between intention and reaction, there’s just enough of a human being left.

And anyone who thinks that’s just sentimental nonsense is quite mistaken.

Psychology has a few lovely terms for this. Autonomy and competence, for example – two of those basic needs described by Deci and Ryan in their self-determination theory: choosing for oneself, being able to do things for oneself, having an impact. A manual gearbox can do exactly that. It places decisions in our hands and responds to them in the very same moment with resistance, a click, a subtle crack in the wrist.

Cognitive science refers to something similar as ‘sense of agency’: the feeling of actually being the originator of an action and its effect. And the more immediate a car’s response, the easier it is to experience precisely this feeling.

A dual-clutch gearbox changes gear for us. A manual gearshift changes gear with us.

And somewhere in between, that ‘flow’ described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi can arise: that wonderful state in which skill and challenge come together and time briefly forgets that it exists. A manual gearbox is, in this context, a stimulating invitation.

And that’s exactly why this car is a perfect fit for McLaren. The brand has always been at its strongest when engineering brings the driver closer and draws them deeper into the experience. From the F1 to the 750S, from obsessive lightweight construction to a nerdy obsession with steering feel and feedback: Woking knows how to do this sort of thing. Perhaps even better than most.

The McL 6GT is still a concept car. Performance, weight, price: much remains to be seen. McLaren has so far mentioned around 500 units, priced in the region of 1.5 million dollars, and the first customers to whom the car has been shown are reportedly already enthusiastic. The production version is due to arrive in 2028. McLaren also sees it as the launch of a new, particularly exclusive type of supercar outside its existing core range. That’s almost the more exciting news. Because this isn’t just about a car. It’s about giving us permission to think about progress in a slightly more nuanced way. And a little further. Not always more. Sometimes closer. More tactile. More authentic. More sensual. More human.

We’ve always wanted cars like this, haven’t we? Cars that make you want to head into the garage in the morning, even when you don’t actually need to go anywhere. Cars that put you in a good mood just at the thought of an empty road. Cars where driving is an experience again, rather than merely the mundane management of power. The McL 6GT could be just such a car. Provided McLaren maintains the courage that makes this concept so appealing right up until 2028.

McLaren is in a pretty good position to achieve this. Because, traditionally, technology in Woking doesn’t have to be an end in itself. Because lightweight construction, driving feel and an obsession with engineering are second nature there anyway. And because they’ve obviously just realised that all this expertise can be used to build something that ultimately seems astonishingly simple:

And hopefully this wonderful little Kiwi will stay exactly where it is right now.

Under the bonnet.

Ready for the next gear.

And that brings us straight to the upcoming issue of ramp, issue #71, dedicated precisely to this timeless, immediate passion for cars, for driving, for mechanics, for sensuality and for all those wonderfully irrational reasons why we fell in love with cars in the first place. And we’ll fall in love all over again, time and time again.

In good spirits. Completely relaxed. Without any promises to save the world. Just as always.

The title says it all: ‘Yabba Dabba Doo’.

Anticipation is allowed.

Available at newsagents from 10 September.

→ mclaren.com