McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition CELEBRATES McLaren’s Le Mans victory in the F1 GTR in 1995

The McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition arrives as a limited run of 50 cars to celebrate McLaren’s success at Le Mans in 1995 with the F1 GTR.

McLaren has seemed to lose its way of late with endless repackaging of the same basics to create ‘new’ models, and seemingly endless ‘special edition’ models to repackage existing models. And we have wondered if this business model is sustainable as each ‘new’ model and ‘special edition’ just seems to add to the Russian Doll feel about McLaren’s range.

But now we get a new special edition from McLaren – the McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition – which feels apt and appropriate, even if there’s been no Le Mans so far this year (it should have been last weekend) thanks to Covid.

The McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition celebrates 25 years since McLaren turned up at Le Mans in 1995, with the world expecting nothing from the Woking upstart and walked away with victory – and a 3rd, 4th and 5th place too – for the McLaren F1 GTR, basically a tweaked for Le Mans road car.

McLaren hasn’t bothered to do anything with the 720S’s underpinnings – 711bhp from the biturbo V8 and 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds – but it has delivered some appropriate mods to the 720S Le Mans nonetheless.

Top of the list is probably the Orange hue (you can have it in grey if you wish), the same as the McLaren F1 LMs built to celebrate the Le Mans success, a roof scoop and vents over the front wheels, F1 GTR-like alloys and ‘Le Mans 25’ badges.

You might expect McLaren to build five of these Le Mans Editions to mimic the number of F1 LMs built, or maybe 25 to celebrate the quarter of a century since the GTR’s Le Mans success. But no, they’re building 50, of which just 16 are destined for sale in Europe.

If you want a McLaren 720S Le Mans Edition you’ll need to fork out at least £245,000.