---
title: McLaren 720S · HICONIUM
description: "The second-generation Super Series arrived with a carbon upper cage, doors that breathe, and a factory quarter-mile claim the magazines promptly beat by two tenths. No production total was ever published — the 400 Launch Editions, 15 Apex cars and 50 Le Mans coupés are the only fixed numbers in the run."
canonical_url: https://hiconium.dev/vehicles/mclaren/720s
image: https://hiconium.dev/og/vehicle/mclaren/720s.png
---

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> On this page: [The price and the proof](#the-price-and-the-proof) · [Model readouts](#model-readouts) · [Documented sales](#documented-sales) · [Woking replaces a family for the first time](#overview-heading) · [Technical specifications](#technical-specifications) · [Powertrain](#powertrain) · [Structure and aero](#structure-and-aero) · [The people behind the car](#the-people-behind-the-car) · [Rob Melville](#rob-melville) · [Mark Vinnels](#mark-vinnels) · [Mike Flewitt](#mike-flewitt) · [Member instruments](#member-instruments)

![A McLaren Orange 720S, front three-quarter view on a deep burnt-orange field in warm daylight](https://hiconium.dev/images/cars/mclaren-720s/hero-wide-2560.jpg)

# 720S

The 10-second sandbag

The second-generation Super Series arrived with a carbon upper cage, doors that breathe, and a factory quarter-mile claim the magazines promptly beat by two tenths. No production total was ever published — the 400 Launch Editions, 15 Apex cars and 50 Le Mans coupés are the only fixed numbers in the run.

2017 to 2022 · Super Series · Woking

## The price and the proof

Indicative road-car band $190K–$350K · 7 documented road sales · 7 recorded sales on file. Modeled values are not observed sales. Nothing here is investment advice.

Confidence: medium. The 720S trades constantly on the online platforms, so the band is well fed: honest coupés run $190k–$250k, Spiders $220k–$275k, and sub-2'000-mile or MSO-liveried cars reach $300k–$346k. classic.com benchmarks the model near $250k — its published '$610'000 high' is a 720S GT3X track car and is excluded here.

Figures in USD for road-going 720S coupés and Spiders including factory editions. The GT3X and other track derivatives are excluded.

Depreciation from a $288'845 base — often $350'000-plus as optioned — is the defining move; even the 1-of-50 Le Mans holds only a modest premium, with a 1'700-mile example at £161'000 including premium at Goodwood in 2025.

Valuation method and source rules: [HICONIUM standards](https://hiconium.dev/standards). Observed auction results across the wider market: [Market terminal](https://hiconium.dev/market).

### Model readouts

7 documented anchors. model v1 · seed mclaren-720s. Compound annual growth is modeled price CAGR; S&P 500 is a price index without dividends. Forecast quantiles are not investment advice.

| Window | This car* | S&P 500 | Gold |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1Y | +25.9% | +18.8% | +21.9% |
| 5Y | -3.7% | +11.4% | +17.6% |

| Series | Deepest drawdown | Window |
| --- | --- | --- |
| This car* | -41.5% | Apr 2024 → Jul 2025 · not recovered |
| S&P 500 | -20.3% | Dec 2021 → Oct 2022 · recovered Dec 2023 |
| Gold | -18.9% | Feb 2026 → Jul 2026 · not recovered |

| Horizon | P10 | P50 | P90 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| +6M | $232'746 | $259'405 | $289'117 |
| +12M | $226'409 | $260'943 | $300'744 |
| +24M | $216'643 | $264'047 | $321'822 |

### Documented sales

7 recorded. Every public sale on this file, newest first. Amounts keep the recorded currency. Source links appear only when the catalog stores a public auction-lot URL.

| Date | Chassis / label | Class | House | Venue | Amount | Currency | Basis | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2026-07-08 | Bring a Trailer · Bring a Trailer · hammer | Road | Bring a Trailer | Bring a Trailer | $206'000 | USD | hammer | [https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2018-mclaren-720s-coupe-20/](https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2018-mclaren-720s-coupe-20/) |
| 2026-04-07 | Bring a Trailer · Bring a Trailer · hammer | Road | Bring a Trailer | Bring a Trailer | $227'000 | USD | hammer | [https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2021-mclaren-720s-spider-3/](https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2021-mclaren-720s-spider-3/) |
| 2026-03-13 | Bring a Trailer · Bring a Trailer · hammer | Road | Bring a Trailer | Bring a Trailer | $219'000 | USD | hammer | [https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2022-mclaren-720s-coupe-3/](https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2022-mclaren-720s-coupe-3/) |
| 2025-10-18 | 1018 | Road | Barrett-Jackson | Scottsdale Fall | $227'700 | USD | incl. buyer's premium | [https://www.barrett-jackson.com/scottsdale-fall-2025/docket/vehicle/2018-mclaren-720s-luxury-launch-edition-289907](https://www.barrett-jackson.com/scottsdale-fall-2025/docket/vehicle/2018-mclaren-720s-luxury-launch-edition-289907) |
| 2025-07-11 | Bonhams · Goodwood Festival of Speed · incl. buyer's premium | Road | Bonhams | Goodwood Festival of Speed | £161'000 | GBP | incl. buyer's premium | [https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/30543/lot/124/2020-mclaren-720s-le-mans-coupe-chassis-no-sbm14dcc8mw298006/](https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/30543/lot/124/2020-mclaren-720s-le-mans-coupe-chassis-no-sbm14dcc8mw298006/) |
| 2024-06-01 | RM Sotheby's · Toronto · incl. buyer's premium | Road | RM Sotheby's | Toronto | $346'000 | USD | incl. buyer's premium | [https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/dd24/lots/r0080-2018-mclaren-720s/](https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/dd24/lots/r0080-2018-mclaren-720s/) |
| 2020-10-24 | RM Sotheby's · Elkhart, Indiana · incl. buyer's premium | Road | RM Sotheby's | Elkhart, Indiana | $307'500 | USD | incl. buyer's premium | [https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/el20/lots/r0122-2018-mclaren-720s/](https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/el20/lots/r0122-2018-mclaren-720s/) |

RM Sotheby's and Bonhams figures include buyer's premium; Bring a Trailer figures are winning bids. Guide figures are date-stamped snapshots — classic.com, The Classic Valuer and KBB, August 2026 — not appraisals.

## Woking replaces a family for the first time

At Geneva in March 2017 Mike Flewitt called the 720S the first time McLaren had replaced an entire product family. The second-generation Super Series kept the mid-engine carbon recipe of the 650S and rebuilt everything around it: the Monocage II extended the tub into an upper carbon cage, the M840T grew to four litres and 720 PS, and the body's cooling moved inside double-skinned doors. Four hundred Launch Editions sold out before the first car left Woking in April.

The Spider followed in December 2018 with a spine-less Monocage II-S and a folding hardtop that cost just 49 kg, and the specials stayed deliberately small: fifteen Apex Collection coupés themed on European circuits in 2019, fifty Le Mans cars in 2020 for the 25th anniversary of the 1995 win. The American magazines, meanwhile, had made the car famous by beating its own numbers — ten-flat quarter miles from a rear-driven V8 that undercut the hybrid holy trinity.

Production of the 2023-model-year cars ended in December 2022, and the 750S took over the Super Series in April 2023 — by McLaren's own telling at least thirty per cent new, which is another way of saying seventy per cent 720S. No production total was ever published; the UK registry counts about nine hundred cars, and the market prices the rest of the mystery.

| Highlight | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| The sandbag became the story | McLaren claimed a 10.3-second quarter mile; Motor Trend ran 10.1 at 141.5 mph and Car and Driver 10.2 at 145 — then the quickest pure-petrol and quickest rear-drive car either had tested. The 720S embarrassed hybrid hypercars costing four times as much, and the factory's conservative sheet became part of the model's legend. |
| Doors that breathe | The body sides carry no intake mouths: cooling air runs through the double-skinned dihedral doors into the flanks, which is why the 720S looks unnervingly smooth for a 212-mph car. Rob Melville's team paired the trick with eye-socket headlamp intakes and a glazed canopy — a shape that divided opinion at Geneva and aged into the purest of the Woking designs. |
| Only the editions are countable | McLaren never published a 720S total. The fixed numbers are the 400 sold-out Launch Editions, the 15 Apex Collection coupés and the 50 Le Mans cars built for the 1995 F1 GTR anniversary. The Le Mans cars carry chassis serials in a 298xxx range — 298 laps won the 1995 race — in McLaren Orange or Sarthe Grey. Public sales show only a modest premium over standard cars. |
| Depreciation is the buyer's friend | A car that stickered near $300'000 — often $350'000-plus optioned — now trades in the low-to-mid $200'000s, with honest coupés under $210'000. That makes the 720S one of the great performance-per-dollar positions in the modern market: Veyron-beating acceleration at a tenth of the money, while low-mile MSO cars hold above $300'000. |

| Label | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Built | No total published |
| Bodies | Coupé · Spider |
| Editions | LE 400 · Apex 15 · Le Mans 50 |
| Design | Rob Melville |
| Successor | 750S, 2023 |

## Technical specifications

### Powertrain

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Engine | M840T twin-turbo V8, 3'994 cc | 41 per cent new against the 3.8 M838T; twin-scroll turbos with electric wastegates, 8'500 rpm redline |
| Output | 720 PS / 710 bhp at 7'500 rpm | the badge is the metric figure; 770 Nm at 5'500 rpm |
| Gearbox | 7-speed SSG dual-clutch | rear-drive through an open differential with Brake Steer — McLaren chose software over a limited-slip's mass |
| Performance | 0–200 km/h in 7.8 s | factory; Motor Trend's 10.1-second quarter beat the factory claim and the Bugatti Veyron's 10.4 |

### Structure and aero

| Label | Value | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Monocage II | Carbon tub with upper structure | the windscreen surround and cage go carbon where the 650S kept aluminium; Spider's Monocage II-S deletes the roof spine |
| Weight | 1'283–1'419 kg | lightest dry to DIN kerb; magazines weighed about 1'434 kg as tested — the ladder matters more than one number |
| Doors | Double-skin dihedral | the body sides have no radiator mouths — cooling air travels through the door skins instead |
| Aero | Active wing and airbrake | full airbrake in about half a second; aerodynamic efficiency more than double the 650S |
| Suspension | Proactive Chassis Control II | hydraulically interconnected dampers, no anti-roll bars — plus Variable Drift Control for the brave |
| Brakes | Carbon-ceramic, 390/380 mm | 200–0 km/h in 117 m on the launch sheet |

## The people behind the car

### [Rob Melville](https://hiconium.dev/people/rob-melville)

Chief designer · McLaren

Led the 720S design — his first Super Series as lead — and was made design director two months after the reveal; the door-duct flanks and canopy glasshouse are his signature.

### Mark Vinnels

Executive director, product development · McLaren

Carried programme continuity from the 12C through the 720S, including the folding driver display and the Monocage II step.

### Mike Flewitt

Chief executive · McLaren

Framed the 720S as McLaren's first full family replacement and priced it squarely against Maranello's mid-engine V8.

## Member instruments

A HICON Bid is a confidential expression of buying interest on this file. It is not a binding purchase, and HICONIUM holds no funds. [Sign in](https://hiconium.dev/sign-in) to place one. Garage files for an owned chassis are member records and are not listed here. [How membership works](https://hiconium.dev/membership).