The McLaren supercar you’ve never heard of, born to save the company – car pictures of the week
One of McLaren’s rarest cars was also charged with keeping the lights on in Woking
The ultimate McLaren road cars wear an LT badge, right? Often, but sometimes not… As is the case with the McLaren 688 HS. On top of being one of McLaren’s rarest road cars, it also has a unique place in the company’s history. We met up with designer Esteban Palazzo, former MSO bespoke head James Banks and HS lead engineer, Paul Arkesden, to learn as much as we could before driving this obscure supercar. These are our favourite shots from the test.
The HS is from a strange period of transition for McLaren. It’s the car MSO had to build while the factory was down, preparing for its upcoming higher-volume era, to keep the cash flowing. It’s the car the team first proposed when asked to generate ideas for the 675LT, with all the rejected concepts added back on. It’s carbon-bodied, with bespoke aero, revised air inlets, a Cosworth-fettled 679bhp engine and revised electronics. A 675LT uncorked, if the 675 could ever be described as ‘corked’ at all…
Here are some quotes from Esteban Palazzo, on creating the 688 HS, from Antony Ingram’s feature. It was originally printed in issue 345 of evo and you can still buy a copy from our online store:
‘The briefing for the 675LT was a track car for the road, so we created a proposal. We unveiled it to Mike Flewitt, and he essentially went, “What the hell is this?” because it was too much!
‘It’s quite common that when the idea of doing a new car arrives in the studio, the studio tends to be overly ambitious. The beauty of MSO is that you could green-light these more ambitious ideas, such as combining a GT3 car and a road car. On every project you generate an archive of ideas, dozens of proposals, and at some point this becomes the DNA of the next vehicle. With the HS, that meant incorporating the dive planes, the louvres, the roof scoop, the high-mounted wing...’
