Two years and 6,500 miles into owning a McLaren 650S Spider, most people would start eyeing the newer model. Harry Metcalfe looked at the 720S, the 750S, and the track-focused 675LT, and decided he’d rather spend his money making the car he already has even better.

The 650S itself has an unusual backstory. Finished in Amethyst Black to match the original McLaren P1 press car, it started life as an MSO factory demonstrator, touring events like Goodwood before Harry bought it. This year brought a return trip to MSO for upgrades, a wheel color change, and, almost by accident, a track day that completely rewrote what Harry thought the car was capable of.

A track day nobody saw coming

Harry never really considered the 650S a track car, treating it more as a relaxed GT for two years. That changed at a Pirelli track day at Silverstone, where he brought the McLaren alongside his Jaguar Project 8. He found himself walking back to the McLaren again and again, which he admits caught him off guard.

Much of that came down to a suspension tweak done earlier by V Engineering, ex-McLaren specialists who’d set the car to 675LT geometry for £486. The change added front camber and, on track, eliminated the understeer that had held the car back this time out. He’d been on track with the car once before and hadn’t been especially impressed, though he doesn’t say exactly why. This time was different. A 650S Spider still does 0-100 mph in 5.9 seconds, and Harry pushed hard enough that tire temps crept past 70°C before backing off.

The visit also surfaced a maintenance quirk: V Engineering explained that the original carbon-ceramic brakes can glaze over with road-only use, going wooden underfoot, and recommended at least one track day a year to keep them sharp.

Wheels, carbon, and a return to Woking

Next came a change Harry had debated for years: swapping the darker 675LT wheels back to the factory silver the car originally wore. He took it to wheel specialist Scott at Neutron Alloys in Swindon for a repaint in the correct period-correct shade.

From there, MSO handled two more jobs: a factory Apple CarPlay retrofit (wired only, but worth it for long trips) and a small OEM carbon windshield scuttle to replace the factory plastic piece that fades and clouds with age. While there, Harry spotted McLaren F1s, SLRs getting factory updates, and Sennas being converted for the US market, a glimpse of the specialist work MSO does that he thinks more owners should actually use.

The value argument he can’t let go of

Beyond his own car, Harry makes a broader case that McLaren’s V8 supercars are seriously undervalued next to Ferrari’s. A 650S Spider actually cost more new than a contemporary 458 Speciale, yet today a good 650S trades around £120,000 against roughly £200,000 for a 488 Spider, with the 458 running close to double that. By his math, you can currently buy two 650S Spiders for the price of one 458.

His reasoning centers on the McLaren’s carbon tub construction, steering he considers benchmark for the class, and better structural rigidity than Ferrari’s spiders, which he says pick up more rattles and flex than their coupes. He’s clear this isn’t a knock on Ferrari, calling the 458, 488, 650S, and 720S all five-star cars. It’s simply that, for what he personally values, the McLaren does more for meaningfully less money.

Where Ferrari wins, in his view, is everything around the car. Maranello offers decades of pedigree, a museum, a racetrack, a factory visit that feels like a pilgrimage. McLaren gives you an illuminated sign at a roundabout in Woking and not much else, a gap Harry attributes to the brand’s roots as a secrecy-obsessed F1 team rather than a company built to court road car owners.

None of that is enough to push him toward a badge change, or even a newer McLaren. Two years in, freshly upgraded, and newly convinced his car has a track side he never explored, Harry seems entirely content right where he is.