They say the best things in life improve with age. If so, what does that say about the new but undeniably familiar McLaren 750S?

Is it still too young to be taken seriously as a frontline, world-beating supercar? Or has it now matured sufficiently to hit that elusive sweet spot, the one that only ever seems to arrive after time, enabling it to reach the next level?

Having driven the 750S on road and track for a couple of days – at Estoril and on the roads that surround it – I’m pretty certain it’s the latter. The 750S might feel fresh and new in both its name and specification but fundamentally it’s a well-established, deeply grown-up machine. One that feels ready to deliver, finally, on the promise McLaren has shown in bursts since its rebirth in 2011 but which has never quite materialised in full, not within the confines of just one car. But the 750S is now that car.

According to McLaren itself, this the lightest, most powerful series production supercar the company has ever built, and although it might lack the hybrid sophistication of its more obvious rivals from Maranello, at its core the 750S is an endearingly old-school, refreshingly simple kind of supercar. One that’s still cutting edge in much of its engineering but, at the same time, not a car that bamboozles with technical complexity.

Instead, it’s just a very potent mid-engined V8 supercar with two turbochargers, a rear wheel-drive chassis, an insanely fast-shifting seven-speed semi-automatic gearbox and a tonne of development miles beneath its new forged, ultra-lightweight alloy wheels. Think of it as three-quarters of a 765 LT but with the practicality of a 720S and an interior heavily influenced by the Artura, and you won’t be a million miles away.

It's not cheap at £243,500 (or £267,900 for the Spider) but then no new McLaren is. Besides, you get what you pay for in this instance, and then some. The familiar-but-different 4.0-litre twin-turbo M840-T engine now produces a whopping 740bhp (750ps hence the name) and 800Nm, with numerous small but key modifications having been made to the way it breathes – and therefore revs – to provide the output increases over the 720S.

It's enough to propel both Coupe and Spider versions to 62mph in a scant 2.8 seconds. The Spider weighs 49 kilos more than the fixed head at 1438kg but is to all intents every inch as fast as the coupe – even on top speed, which has dropped from 212mph to 206mph for both versions because the gearing is lower and closer, to give even more meaningful acceleration where it counts.

Elsewhere, the 750S has been heavily revised and boasts a faster steering rack, bigger brakes, uprated dampers, a brand new interior featuring full Apple CarPlay/Android connectivity (but no folding instrument binnacle this time) plus numerous styling tweaks that make it look both sexier and more aggressive than the 720. The overall effect is dramatic but still familiar. You can tell it comes from the same gene pool that produced the 720S, but in its detail – especially its raw performance – the 750S feels like a radically different car. One that drives with more focus, more edge, more bite, more of everything. Yet on the road it’s a car that feels every bit as civilised as a 720S. And that was basically McLaren’s brief with the car; to increase the driving thrills to a level close to those offered by a 765LT without losing any of the 720’s refinement or usability.

It’s a strong cocktail of attributes, and although McLaren sees the 750S as a rival to the similarly priced Ferrari 296, in reality it’s a very different kind of car from the V6 twin-turbo hybrid 296. One with a more open, arguably warmer and more approachable personality that’s easier to understand and, ultimately, simpler to enjoy. And I kind of love it for being this way – for being so easy to interact with and, ultimately, to have a scream driving.

There are still the same three drive modes to choose from – Comfort, Sport and Track – each of which has more definition than of old to make the transition between modes more obvious.

In Comfort the ride is calm, the V8 engine relatively quiet, the gearchanges smooth. In Sport the exhaust gets louder, the throttle response much keener, and there are pleasingly random crackles and bangs on both up and downshifts. Occasionally flames erupt out of the central exhaust. And in Track mode everything – from the throttle map, to the gearshift speed, to the response from the dampers – is retuned to deliver the fastest times possible on a track. The gearshifts actually get smoother in Track mode because this is faster, says McLaren, than the more dramatic ignition cuts and subsequent exhaust bangs you get in Sport.

You can even specify the brakes from a McLaren Senna for an extra £15k if you think the standard carbon ceramic rotors aren’t good enough for you, while Pirelli Trofeo tyres are also an advisable no-cost options if you’re going to drive your 750S on a track. And if you have one, you really should – because although it’s a still a very lovely car to drive on the road, only on a track does it come fully alive.

There are no stand out elements that define the 750S dynamically. Instead, it excels at pretty much everything it does on the move, which is a serious credit to just how good a job McLaren has done on this car. It feels connected and harmonised in the way it responds to your inputs – be that at the throttle, steering or brakes – in a way that even a 296 never quite manages to replicate. As a result, it’s a remarkably easy car to get quite a lot out of, quite quickly on a track – mainly because it’s so friendly and approachable in its demeanour. It feels delightfully analogue from this point of view. For a 200mph full beans supercar it is uniquely easy to get along with, right from the get-go, but only because McLaren has got so many of the fundamentals like the driving position, instruments and control clarity, visibility etc, so spot on.

This is not to say the 750S is in any way dull, however, because it is not. To unlock the last 10-15 per cent out of it you need to know what you are doing, and if you don’t, you will inevitably end up in trouble – because despite being unusually easy to interact with at seven tenths, it’s also fast enough to remove your skin if you try to go all the way in it. Not just in a straight line but through corners and under brakes, too. Under brakes especially, in fact.

The way the twin-turbo V8 delivers its acceleration so smoothly is deeply impressive, of course it is. The noise it makes is also now much more dramatic than before, and far more appropriate for this kind of car. But the rate at which it will catapult you towards the horizon is still magnificently shocking the first few times you experience it, and even after several laps at full beans, it doesn’t abate. The 750S will freak you out with its pure speed as much after two hours as it will in the first two minutes. Its ability to shock, impress, intrigue, elate and amaze simply never fades.

It is the car McLaren has been promising to build for some years now, and even at a quarter of a million quid it is worth every penny, and then some.