For millennia, purple has been the mark of royalty, the color of Roman emperors and Japanese aristocrats. But the word "purple" is simply too pedestrian in an age when producing the hue no longer requires collecting and boiling mountains of snails.
And so McLaren rolls into the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance this weekend with a special version of its 570S Coupe that may look purple but most definitely is not. It's "mauvine blue."
It is but the latest entry to the pantheon of color names that are both ridiculous and inaccurate. Lexus has "molten pearl" (orange). Jaguar's got "caviar metallic" (brown). And BMW offers "havanna" (also brown). We offer a shoutout to Cadillac's "majestic plum," which although nonsensical is at least the color of a plum.
Silly color name aside, the rest of the 570S checks out. The slightly more affordable, slightly less powerful version of McLaren's excellent 650S, packs a twin-turbo 3.8-liter V8, runs from 0 to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds, and tops out at 204 mph.
The 570S starts for $184,000, but with special options like a "carbon black" (which, surprisingly, is black) leather interior, this special model will cost a bunch more. McLaren's goal is to show off some of the bespoke options it can offer wealthy buyers, even if it doesn't list a whole lot of options. After all, this is a sports car, so you're not going to pack in a champagne bottle holder or anything.
The luxury brand is bringing it to Pebble Beach because there are so many wealthy potential buyers in one place, it's like scooping up caviar (which, FYI Jaguar, is black) with a mother of pearl caviar spoon (which, FYI Rolls-Royce, is a great name for a color).
