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Video: McLaren 720S Hits 147 MPH on NYC Streets, Breaks Lap of Manhattan Record

Photo credit: JTThornton / YouTube
Photo credit: JTThornton / YouTube

Back in 2013, a BMW Z4 driver named Adam Tang uploaded a video of a "lap around Manhattan," completed in a then-record 24 minutes. It was the beginning of a saga that saw the driver better known as Afroduck convicted of reckless driving before fleeing to Canada, putting enough attention on the record that it was seemingly not beaten for nine years. As it turns out, the record lasted just seven until being publicly beaten.

In a video shared on YouTube and credited to driver JTThornton, a McLaren 720S is seen running a route around Manhattan in a time of 21 minutes and three seconds. That beats the Afroduck record by more than three minutes, all while catching 24 red lights to the original video's six. According to the car's onboard trip computer, the driver averaged 69 mph (and 5.8 mpg) over the route of the run.

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The McLaren driver apparently completed the lap during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in June of 2020, leaving significantly less traffic on the route than what had been seen in the original video. Add to that a significantly faster car than the original stock Z4 and the new driver is left with a record unlikely to fall without the help of a second city-shuttering global pandemic.

When Tang uploaded his video, he was arrested within a week and prosecuted within a year. It remains to be seen if the NYPD will show similar interest in this record.

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