Prior to 2011 McLaren Cars, as it was then, had built just two cars. Admittedly, they were both pretty good cars, particularly the McLaren F1 which was, for a fair number of years, the fastest production car in the world.

That was launched way back in 1992 and, until 2010 and a change of name to McLaren Automotive, the only other activity of note amounted to a collaboration with Mercedes on the McLaren SLR

A year after the name change the 12C was launched followed, 12 months later, by the Spider model. A business plan that saw the company pledge to release a new car or model every year brought us the P1 hypercar, the 650S in both coupe and spider body styles, the Sports series featuring the 570S, 570GT, 540C and 600LT, the Super Series with the 720S, the Ultimate Series with the Senna, Speedtail and Elva and, finally, the car being reviewed here, the GT.

As you can see, McLaren have had a busy decade.

Back to the present day and the car that is currently in my possession: The elegant McLaren GT. It is pitched against the Bentley Continental GT and Aston Martin DB11 but it would be fair to say that the firm clearly has its own ideas about what a GT should be.

To distinguish the GT from its siblings there’s an updated version of the firm’s carbon tub and a tweaked version of the familiar 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. It also rides on bespoke suspension with proactive damping control. The steering set-up, brakes and tyres are all new as well.

The styling takes the firm in a new direction too, although there’s no chance that you would mistake it for anything but a McLaren. The design is a little more restrained with a longer body and greater elevation – something that is key to this car’s ethos.

At 4,683mm the GT is 153mm longer than the 570GT. McLaren haven’t tried to squeeze any additional seats into the cabin – like many cars in this particular arena, they would undoubtedly be rudimentary at best – instead concentrating on passenger-space practicality and boot space.

You still have to straddle – in my case, inelegantly – the bespoke carbon tub but the cabin feels delightfully spacious and airy. Should you want a little more light you can opt for a panoramic roof with, or without, electrochromatic glass that transitions between clear and opaque at the flick of a switch.

The GT boasts a load bay that will swallow 420 litres of your luggage – that’s more than a Golf – but, unlike the hatchback from VW you won’t be filling up that space with large, bulky items because the load bay is very long and shallow. The tailgate has a soft-close function as standard but there is an electrically-powered option that comes as part of the Premium Pack.

McLaren says the GT will carry a set of golf clubs or a set of skis so that leaves the 150-litre froot – the front boot – for your overnight bag.

The infotainment system is presented on a seven-inch portrait-orientated touchscreen. It’s responsive, but the menu system isn’t particularly intuitive and the on-display climate controls are fiddly to operate, and not just for people like me with Wall’s bangers for fingers. I kid you not, the icons are ridiculously tiny.

Below the screen is a cluster of shortcuts buttons for quick access to functions like sat-nav, audio and phone, as well as volume dial and, in the centre of that, the home button.

The switches to manipulate the electrically-operated seats are located beneath your left – if you’re the driver – knee on the seat base close to the transmission tunnel. It isn’t the most elegant, nor convenient, of solutions and you have to rely on your sense of touch to locate the correct buttons but they are shaped to make the process a little easier.

Once you have fallen – in my case – into them, the leather seats are firm, supportive and delightfully cosseting. Speaking of leather, I would just like to thank the many, many, many animals who gave their lives so I could enjoy a cabin that is absolutely covered in the stuff.

All the switchgear is metal, which gives a real feeling of solidity and luxury. In fact, the cabin is beautifully opulent and luxurious, giving you a good idea where your 160-odd thousand pounds has gone.

Ahead of you the compact instrument binnacle houses a 12.3in TFT screen. As well as speed, engine revs and gear selection, the instrument cluster can also display sat-nav instructions, trip information and vehicle data.

There isn’t much in the way of cabin storage. There are no door bins – possibly because every time you opened the doors the contents would be strewn across the road – and the glovebox is tiny. There’s a small cubby beneath the centre arm rest. There’s a single usb socket inside and room for a mobile phone and your wallet. The two-seater does boast three cup-holders though and, no, I don’t know why either.

You can opt for a Bowers & Wilkins sound system that is, by design, light in weight but rich in texture and tone.

The view out of the front and over the shoulder is brilliant but you, perhaps, won’t be surprised to learn that visibility out the back is less so. The only sensible thing to do, in fact, is opt for the rear-view camera. This time of year it will need cleaning frequently too.

One of a grand tourer’s most important missions is to deliver you at your destination several hours and a couple of hundred miles looking and feeling as perky as you did when you climbed into the car that morning. On that score the GT largely nails it. It all starts with the wonderful seats of course, but that comfort would be wasted if the ride wasn’t supple, isolating and cushioning. And it is.

Where, perhaps, the GT could make things even easier – and I know the folks at McLaren would counter this by saying that they want you to drive their cars – is with the addition of adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, lane-keeping assist and even adaptive emergency braking.

The cabin isn’t whisper-quiet, by any stretch but, considering it appears to be only a strip of leather separating you from the engine, cruising along at speed is a relatively serene affair. The V8 is relegated to a muted drone somewhere behind your shoulders and even tyre noise is reasonably well suppressed.

Brakes are steel as standard but you can tick a little box and add £7,750 to the base price if you want the carbon-ceramic items fitted to my review car. For the record they are very, very effective, consistent and there's terrific pedal feel.

There’s no crashing, shuddering or thumping from the suspension. The GT shrugs cracks, bumps and high-frequency imperfections aside with a surprising indifference and it does this while still managing to deliver all the information that the front wheels are collecting straight to your fingertips.

Where the GT really manages to surprise is around town where progress is remarkably easy and relaxed. High-powered cars can be a little intimidating negotiating stop-start traffic and busy junctions as you try to balance the need to grab each small opportunity to pull away with the need not to overcook things and end up spearing into another car. The GT feels benign and manageable and responds predictably to a dab of your right foot on the accelerator.

Of course, when you’ve got a bit more leeway and you’re able to unleash the full force of that 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 it becomes a very different beast. Once the revs climb above 2,500rpm – where there’s a modicum of turbo-lag evident – things start to get properly serious, all the way up to 8,200. Power delivery is linear, smooth and absolutely bonkers. The engine-note is more what you would expect from a V8, too.

The seven-speed gearbox does its job perfectly well in automatic mode and, of course, for those long tours that you’ll be enjoying in this car is the perfect option but, to really enjoy what the GT has to offer you should, you must, take charge of swapping ratios yourself with the deliciously tactile paddles behind the steering wheel.

There’s a small panel ahead of the drive selector switches with two dials – one applies the changes to the Handling and the other the Powertrain – that allow you to cycle through the Comfort, Sport and Track driving modes. If you are a particularly skilled driver, or think you are, you can also disable the electronic stability control and switch between automatic or manual gear changes. There’s also another of those grand tourer essential functions: Launch control.

A grand tourer it might be but it’s still a McLaren and it still has to deliver a compelling drive when called upon. And it really does. It corners flat, turns in eagerly and allows you to apply the power early and confidently. The steering is impeccably-weighted, the feedback sumptuous, and the balance faultless.

Whether this is a good car or not is beyond doubt. It is beautifully engineered, impeccably put together and drives like a dream. That would be enough if this was simply a McLaren sports car but, it isn’t. Does it do enough to live up to its GT billing? Not in the traditional sense it doesn’t but, then, this is a McLaren and their interpretation of a GT is a car that you’ll want to drive and drive and drive. The fact that you have room for a spot of luggage to tide you over when you get wherever you’re going is a bonus.

McLaren GT Luxe

Price: £163,000

As tested: £220, 630

Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 petrol

Transmission: 7-speed automatic

Max power: 620PS @ 7,500rpm

Max torque: 630Nm @ 5,500 – 6,500rpm

Max speed: 203mph

0-62mph: 3.2sec

Fuel consumption

Low: 12.7mpg

High: 30.4mpg

Combined: 23.7mpg

Emissions (CO2): 270g/km

For more information visit www.mclaren.com