“Why do I feel like he’s having a much different experience than I am?” I said this aloud to myself on a hot Los Angeles afternoon as I idled “my” certified pre-owned 2020 McLaren 720S Spider in a McDonald’s drive-through. Across the pond, Angus MacKenzie, MotorTrend’s former editor-in-chief turned international bureau boss, was banging around in “his” GT, along the way taking in a road trip through the Scottish Highlands, and here I was in the middle of tracking down Happy Meal toys promoting a critically panned movie starring L.A.’s self-anointed basketball king. (Blame the 6-year-old for this mission.)
I pictured MacKenzie’s window down and his trademark mane fluttering in the salty breeze, hammer to the anvil in his GT passing fairytale Scottish castles, his soothing Australian accent calling out historical landmarks. I could hear a bagpipe legato lulling me into stasis …
“Hey, sweetie, can I have some money? C’mon!” came the slurred words, accompanied by light jostling of the 720’s rear. Snapped back to full consciousness, I looked to the driver-side mirror and absorbed the reflection of a middle-aged, scantily clad, sunbaked (and plain baked) woman doing a zombie-dust impression of a pole dance against the back bumper. This wasn’t quite what I had in mind when McLaren offered an extended stint in its mega-fast hardtop convertible. Sigh.
The parameters for this “long-term” loan of the 720S Spider were three months or a mileage allotment of 1,500, as McLaren endeavored to align the time/mileage
