MSO's McLaren 570GT proves green is THE supercar colour

Since British racing cars binned green liveries for sponsorship in the early 1970s, green is has been a cruelly underused colour on fast cars.

Ferrari’s signature is red, Aston Martin’s is usually 007-spec grey, and even McLaren itself identifies with eye-searing orange. Green has been left unfairly out of fashion. Here’s hoping the latest work from McLaren Special Operations can change that.

Green paint and tan leather is perhaps the classiest combination to grace any car, tasteful on anything from an Alfa Mito to a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso. A run of six McLaren 570GTs is this very spec is yet more proof that green and tan ought to be this season’s must-have for the Instagram supercar generation. 

There’s a historical angle to the six 570GTs decked out by MSO (with plaques to confirm their special status), too. The green paint is a shade inspired by the ‘XP Green’, applied to the McLaren F1 GT prototype, or ‘XP’ in McLaren-speak. You may know it better as the original F1 Longtail.

Only three road-going examples of the elongated F1 GT were built, after McLaren set about homologating stretched bodywork for its F1 GTR racing cars to stay competitive with newer Porsche GT1 and Mercedes CLK GTR prototypes at Le Mans. XP GT is retained by McLaren, and can still be seen gracing the other-worldly entrance hall of the McLaren Technical Centre in Woking. Its value is easily eight figures long.

So, the MSO 570GTs are a relative bargain. For the green paint and tan hide combination, with green stitching and orange and black exterior touches, you pay an extra £21,000 over a bog-standard, £154,000 570GT. Power remains 562bhp, and 0-62mph still takes 3.4 seconds. And unless you’re in the UK, Germany or the Netherlands, forget it. The XP 6 are for those markets only.  

If you’re elsewhere in the world, don’t let that stop you getting behind the 'Campaign for Green Supercars'. Who fancies a bottle green Lamborghini Huracan Performante, or a minty 911 GT2 RS? Other suggestions for how to put green back on the map are welcome below…