Top Car

86 TOPCAR.CO.ZA|January 2016has made to deliver on its usability promise. The carbontub’s vastly lower si llcompared with th at inthe 650S, togetherwith a moregenerous door swing means it’s far easier to get inand out of than its sibling. Not easy, but easier. The visibilityisgenerous too, both ahead, to the side and through the letterbo xrear window , though the front wing peaks aren’t as obvious asinits big brother, making it harder to place on the ro ad,whether you’re carving through the countr yside or dodgingLisbon’s ancient trams.The relationsh ip between seat , wheel and pedals is perfectthough, the new digital instrument display clear, and nowfeaturin g turn-by-turn navigation instructions to supplementthe mainmap display inthe tunnel. The new physicalshor tcutbuttons to functions accessed via that central Iris infotainment``````screen are welcome, as is the shift inthe RND ge archangebuttons, which have been moved sufficiently forward inthetunnel that you no lo nger need to op erate them with yourelbow. It’s tang ibly less spac ey inhere thansomething like aFerrari 488, but that also co ntributes to a wieldy feel whenthreading through the city. And inrelative terms, it’s notcramped. Infact, bizarrely, it’s bigger thanthe costlier 650S bothinside and out. Headroom is good, and while it do esn’t have911’s rear-seat-cum luggage du mp, the front boot is large andthere’s a ge nerous shel f behind the seat s for more squashy ba gs.Like the Turbo S, the 570 comes only with a seven-speeddual-c lutch transmission, which takes some of the sting outLisbon’s stop/starttraffic. But the pedal effortrequired toclamp the McLaren’s standard carbon discs sufficiently hard toBothanswertothe name‘wieldy’,but bothsufferfromthe turbolagFerrari’s 488 seemstohavedialledout