Why the chief designer of the 720S thinks McLarens have to make you smile

Rob Melville had an impeccable pedigree even before landing what has to be the dream job as Chief Designer at McLaren Automotive.

While working at Jaguar Land Rover he'd penned the LRX that would later morph into the production Evoque, a model that almost single-handedly revived and rebooted Range Rover and got it on driveways previously thought impossible.

His boss, Design Director Frank Stephenson, knows what it takes to design - or re-design - an icon, having been responsible for New Mini and Nuovo Cinquecento (New Fiat 500)

Melville took time over lunch just weeks away from the Geneva launch of the first Super Series II car, the McLaren 720S. Flanked by a McLaren F1 on one side of the glass, a 675LT on the other and behind us a Monocage from the original Super Series, wherever you go at the McLaren Technology Centre, you are bathed in both the history and the immediacy of what McLaren does. Just metres away are the covered windows of the F1 bay where the 2017 F1 challenger, the MCL32, was taking shape, and between us and them a row of McLaren's Formula 1 racing cars stretching over almost four decades.

The McLaren 720S is both a departure from the current range, which derives much of its looks from the wild P1, but also a return to the look of the F1. If you squint.

Early in the interview, Melville tells me one of his favourite planes is the Lockheed Blackbird SR-71. Every designer says that, but it’s something that he and his team can actually go for.

"It's a challenge, because once you bring together those package requirements, customer requirements, aerodynamic requirements, visual requirements. I've been in the design studio since the start, so we've been able to get everything pulling in the same direction to get to that SR-71 sweet spot. We're way closer than all the other manufacturers. That’s what we're aiming for."

I asked how far the 720S has moved the game closer to the Blackbird.

"It's definitely a bold step towards it. We've brought all those ingredients together, we approached it as a military-type sculpture. It hasn't got the brutality of a jet, but it’s got the technical sculpture, the technical sophistication. When you look at it, you understand it. It looks like someone has plucked it from the natural world and integrated some wheels into it. It has a very human touch to it."

One of the striking elements of the 720S is just how smooth and clean the external surfaces are, all around the car.

"It looks like a really clean, simple bodyside. You can see the amount of sculpture. From the moment the air it hits the car, it's all about how do you steer it around the volume."

There's a lot going on underneath those smooth surfaces, though. The doors, for example, are part of the aerodynamics, but not just in getting the air from front to rear without ruining everything.

"How do you cool 720hp (530kW) without any visible side intakes? We actually unpeeled the car. So we've taken the door, made two skins and that allows us to take all the high energy air that flows over the front and down into the skin. When you look inside, it's sculpted like the sides of an F1 car.

"By layering it, we've removed the fat. You can see through the car. And of course it's functional, allowing us to take air through the ducts. We're actually visually communicating the way the car works."

He points me to the headlight. It's another new element that is going to be a feature of future McLarens.

"Here you have intakes for the low temp radiator (LTR) below the lamps. You can take air in either side of the lightglobe. We call it the eye socket, it effectively allows us to improve the cooling. We get high energy air into the top corner and the bottom, which means the LTR can be smaller, which means you can drop your lamps down to the legal minimum, get the whole proportion of the car perfect.

"The reason we've got the lamps recessed - and one of the things that led us to the socket - is because we wanted an upright lens. That was a challenge from engineering. The attribute for light output. We knew straight away that we need this pure volume, this really sleek volume. So we pushed it in to make the socket, the socket grew to take the air into the radiators. So the new ones with the upright lenses and new technology, it's a whole new world. Bright headlights on a supercar!"

That's not the only practical concern in the new car. Look closely and you can see that the C-pillars are glazed and that the A-pillars are remarkably thin for a modern car.

"When you're sat in there, it literally feels like nothing before it. And one of the things we wrote on the brief, well, I wrote, was 'glasshouse like nothing before, clean body side, iconic front end.' We didn't know what iconic front end meant at the time, but whereas the glasshouse I knew it had to feel like this jet fighter canopy. How many designers have said 'jet fighter canopy' and it never really materialises.

"So we have these really delicate structures, you can see all the carbon. Out on the track, it's that sensation of being more exposed it makes it feel faster, that level of engagement. Or if you’re in town, you can park it safely."

How does the 720S inform the future look of McLarens? There's a whole range of cars to renew, a new three-seater GT to build and the predictable secret future hypercars.

"We're creating a strategy, so each series has its own, within our pillars and principles, they have their own character. It's like members of a family - they're all quite different. The younger one, the sporty athletic one, the powerful one, the aero, so we're going to give them this real distinction. And part of that distinction is coming from the socket, you get this iconic new face."

"We don't add to the cars, we don't decorate the cars. Just take what you need and make it beautiful. Every profile, every material has earned its place on the car, it's justified its place there."

He takes me back to the SR-71.

"Everything was chosen for a reason and for me that's the ultimate. To get something that good-looking and it's genuine, that's kind of how I want McLaren to be. It's dynamic product design, it's not about styling. It's about thinking about things which benefit the customer in terms of usability, engagement, putting a smile on the face, ultimately. That’s what I always think, it has to make you smile."

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