Like many automakers, McLaren‘s challenge is to create something new—not a facelift, but a market-defining, tech-forward, future-facing vehicle to include in the race to shed combustion engines, generating a storm of curiosity. Although first introduced in mid-2021, Artura—McLaren’s first series-production hybrid—officially made its world debut at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix, when HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco drove it around the track on a cloudy May day. From the stands and the pits, Artura maintained a design fluency: flying buttresses, dihedral doors, that distinguishable snout. “It’s all new entirely,” Jamie Corstorphine, director of product strategy at McLaren, says.

The ongoing chip shortage late last year resulted in an initial vehicle delivery delay, with another setback due to “certain technical upgrades.” announced during the November third quarter earnings report. This required a capital raise from Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat Holding Co, McLaren’s main shareholder. The brand sold some of its heritage car collection for a $123 million cash infusion. Quite a gamble, some critics have noted.

As if to further highlight McLaren’s big bet on Artura, the brand selected Las Vegas as the location for test drives—on roads through the Valley of Fire and the short but punchy Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

For more than a decade, McLaren has been building supercars powered exclusively by twin-turbocharged V8s. Table stakes,…