Future Classics

The McLaren 720S occupies an unusual position for a car of its calibre: it was, by consensus, the best all-round supercar of its generation when new, and it's already gone — production ended in late 2022, succeeded by the closely related but pricier 750S — without the secondhand market having fully caught up to what that means.

The case for the 720S starts with what it actually was. Built on McLaren's Monocage II carbon monocoque, a genuine step forward from the 650S architecture it replaced, the 720S was widely judged in period testing to match or beat the Ferrari 488 GTB and Lamborghini Huracán Performante, and did so with a level of everyday usability — ride quality, visibility, luggage space — that neither Italian rival matched. McLaren doesn't get the same instant brand recognition as Ferrari or Lamborghini outside enthusiast circles, and that gap between objective ability and market perception is precisely the kind of mispricing that tends to close over time rather than persist indefinitely.

The 750S succeeded it as an evolution rather than a clean-sheet redesign — same monocoque generation, same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, modest gains in power — which means the 720S isn't being superseded so much as it's becoming the original, lower-priced entry point into a still-current architecture. There's a broader context worth noting too: McLaren's more recent road cars have moved toward hybrid powertrains, the Artura being the clearest example. The 720S sits within the company's purely combustion-engined turbo V8 era — a chapter that won't be repeated in quite the same form.

What to watch for: Spider versions for usability, low-mileage Performance-pack coupes for the purest expression of the original concept, and full McLaren service history given the complexity of the active suspension and aerodynamics systems.

Some Future Classics arguments rest on inference about where a market segment is heading. This one doesn't need to — Porsche has now confirmed exactly what the 718 Cayman GT4 RS represents.

Production of the petrol-powered 718 Cayman and Boxster has now ended, with the next generation of the model confirmed as electric. And on 25 June 2026, Porsche unveiled the new 911 GT4 R customer racing car, the first 911-based car in a GT4 programme the Cayman platform had underpinned since 2016 — more than 1,500 cars built — and its successor at the top of the customer racing range. Between those two facts, the conclusion is not really a matter of editorial opinion: the GT4 RS and its open-top sibling, the 718 Spyder RS, are the last naturally aspirated, combustion-engined, mid-engined GT Porsches that will ever wear the Cayman or Boxster name.

The car itself earns the attention independent of that context. The GT4 RS takes the 4.0-litre flat-six and 9,000rpm redline from the 911 GT3 and fits it to the smaller, lighter Cayman body — a genuinely different driving experience, not simply a junior version of the 911 it borrows from. PDK-only was a deliberate choice for outright pace, made at a moment when the option of a manual gearbox is disappearing from this segment entirely.

What happens to values from here depends on how clearly the market understands what's just been confirmed. A car correctly understood as the final example of an entire engineering approach — naturally aspirated flat-six, mid-engined, no electrification, built on a dedicated sports car platform rather than adapted from a 911 — tends not to stay at new-car-adjacent pricing once that finality is widely recognised.

What to watch for: Weissach Package cars for the additional carbon and weight saving, and the 718 Spyder RS for those who want the same drivetrain with a roof that comes off.

BMW's M division built its reputation on compact, focused performance cars before the lineup grew larger and more complex, and the F87-generation M2 — sold 2016 to 2021 — is the last expression of that original formula on the smallest chassis BMW still made.

The base M2 used a single-turbo straight-six borrowed in modified form from the M235i, a slightly unusual choice for a halo M product that drew some criticism at launch. BMW corrected course with the 2018 M2 Competition, fitting the S55 twin-turbo six shared with the contemporary M3 and M4 — the genuinely significant car in the range, offering essentially M3 performance in a smaller, lighter body, with a proper manual gearbox available throughout. The 2020 M2 CS pushed further still: a limited-production run with a carbon-fibre bonnet and roof, uprated brakes, and the most power the F87 chassis ever received.

The generation that followed, the G87 M2, moved onto a larger platform shared with the current 2-series — wider, heavier, and by most road tests measurably less of a pure compact sports coupe than the car it replaced. That shift is the heart of the Future Classics case: the F87 represents the last M2 built on BMW's smaller architecture before the model grew into something closer to a junior M3 than a genuinely compact performance car in its own right. Manual-gearbox compact coupes from any manufacturer are an increasingly short list, and the M2 Competition and CS are among the more credible entries on it.

What to watch for: manual Competition models in original specification, and CS cars specifically for the lightweight bodywork and the ceiling it puts on what the standard car can achieve.