On a Supercar, the Cameras Are There To Make You Go Faster
2020 McLaren 600LT / Base Price: $256,500 / Engine: Twin Turbo V8 / Horsepower: 592 / Weight (Dry): 2,749 lbs. / Zero-to-60: 2.9 sec. / Warranty: 3 year unlimited milage
Among the selling points for six-figure supercars cars like the McLaren 600LT: noise, brutal ride quality, and an absence of conveniences. (For one, there's no glove box). Those deliberate deficiencies benefit performance and feedback for the driver, all of which amounts to feeling like you’re driving a real race car to Olive Garden. It's a grown up car version of wearing a super hero cape outside.
You could spend a bit less on a McLaren 570S or 570GT, which are quieter and gentler. But the 600LT, like the Ferrari 488 Pista or Lamborghini Huracán Performante, is for customers who find that discomfort invigorating.
It all sounds stupid until you try it. Even at legal speeds, every drive is exhausting. But outside of piloting a fighter jet, there aren’t many other ways to experience so much noise and confusion while feeling, inexplicably, in complete control. The 600LT, specifically, is about as good as enthusiastic driving gets. Problem is, if you want to drive anywhere even approaching this car’s capabilities, you’re breaking laws and terrifying your passenger. One solution: take it to a race track.
That’s where the cameras come in.
Spend a few hundred bucks (and make sure your insurance covers a track day), and you can bring a car like the 600LT to a track. Besides the absence of speed limits, track days are where people who own a car like this can feel the manufacturer’s racing history. That’s another selling point for companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini: these mid-engine supercars are the result of decades of ingenuity in pursuit of winning races. Those paddles you use to shift gears with your hands? Taken from race cars. And winning races means getting faster by analyzing game footage.
In the 600LT, the cameras in the bumper and between the seats are part of a $1,660 option. If your car has them, before you start your lap, you turn on what's called the track telemetry system. Along with video recording, the car records how hard you’re engaging the brakes and throttle, your steering angle, rpm, speed—every metric that can help inform you about what to do differently next time to go just a bit faster. Plug a USB thumb drive into the car’s ports, send it all the data, and plug the drive into a PC.
There, you'll see loads of x-y graphs that you can break down into actionable information: brake later on this turn, harder on the throttle out of that turn, etc.
If $300,000, plus a track day, plus insurance isn’t in your budget (which...understandable), McLaren, like other exotic car companies, will host civilians at racing schools—these start at over $1,000 and can go beyond $30,000 for multiple days of driving. Why so expensive? Besides the wear on the cars, the insurance, and the location, participation requires a staff of experts, including instructors who ride along with you to talk you into a faster lap time.
If all of this sounds like an expensive way for people to live out race car driver fantasies, it kind of is. But even if you drive an old Mazda Miata, time on a track is a reliable way to get thrills and learn skills that will help you drive better on your commute.
Cameras help, but aren't required.
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