MCLAREN ARTURA

Did the retina-searing supercar reveal its true colours in our six months together?

- ANDREW FRANKEL

I don't know either way, but it would be understandable if there had been a few crossed fingers down Woking way the day an Ember Orange McLaren Artura headed out to spend the next half year as my daily driver. After all, the car's introduction had been delayed. Then, after some well-documented issues on its press launch, it got delayed some more. This time out, the car simply had to be right - not for a few hours on the road and a few laps of a race track but thousands of miles accrued month after month.

So let's look that straight in the eye right now. Well, in that time, three things happened that required McLaren's attention, which, on the surface, doesn't sound too great. But one of them was that it was delivered with the standard passive cruise control stalk, not the one with the button that should have allowed the active system fitted to vary the distance to the car in front. The cruise still worked perfectly well and, clearly, this was a simple oversight, which I think can be forgiven.

The other 'fault' was really more mine than the car's, for not seeing a pothole big enough to swallow a small horse. The wheel and tyre banged in so hard that I'd not have been surprised to have taken the corner off the car. The fact that the only damage was to the sensor in the Pirelli tyre that tells the car its temperature and pressure is actually a stunning example of just how well this thing's been built. It didn't even knock the tracking out.