In the supercar world of lithesome lines and exponential leaps in power, the only way for McLaren to elicit a wow is to build a car so entirely outside the carbon-fibre box that it could never be confused with anything else in the current McLaren lineup. The Elva—a play on “Elle VA,” French for “she goes”—is an 804-hp hat tip to McLaren’s open-cockpit racers that dominated the Can-Am series through the 1960s and helped establish the brand as a winner.

Although it reminds us of the past, Elva breaks McLaren’s current design language. The carbon-fibre skin stretches like taffy around a modified tub from the Monocell II family, which underpins the Sport Series cars (570S, 600LT, and 620R). In the interest of weight reduction, the material’s thickness measures a mere 0.05 inch at the nose. The carbon-fibre nose completely lacks panel joints, shrouding the entire front end with a seamless flourish. McLaren claims the minimalist Elva weighs 40 kilograms less than the Senna, weighing more than 1360kg.

Drop inside, yank the eerily light door down, and a soft-close function seals the last bit. Adjust the steering wheel position, and the entire gauge binnacle moves with it. The 8.0-inch screen cluster is accented with brushed aluminium joints and flanked by dials for suspension settings on the left and powertrain modes on the right.

Judged by the clear feedback through the steering, the lively throttle response, and the hard pedal and grab of the brakes, the Elva experience is like that of any modern McLaren, but the familiarity ends there. The cabin unfolds into the exterior, the curved door panel flooding colour into the otherwise unadorned cockpit. The effect makes the whole experience feel like you’ve been transported into a swoopy Pininfarina concept car from the 1969 Turin Motor Show.

The view ahead and around is entirely uninterrupted by anything—no wiper streaks, no bug-smudged glass, no A-pillars blocking the sightlines. Every crack and bump of pavement in clear sight. It’s a revelation, this freedom of vision. Inches behind the front seats is the Senna-derived twin-turbo 4.0-litre V-8 that shoots expletives through an Inconel and titanium exhaust. Without a top between you and the 804-hp V-8 behind your head, you get a lot of lovely sounds, but the lack of a windshield means you hear the whine from the electro-hydraulic power-steering pump mounted up front.

McLaren says Elva will hit 60 mph in under 3.0 seconds and can beat the Senna to 124 mph, achieving the speed in a mere 6.8 clicks before topping out at what must be a brutal 203 mph. A 911 Turbo S cabriolet will post similar numbers without bugs in the teeth for about an eighth of the cost—not that 149 Elva buyers are cross-shopping six-figure Porsches.

Ostensibly, this roadster is less a car than it is mobile artwork. The Elva faces McLaren’s uncertain future with abandon. It is brave, involving, unusual, deceptively simple, and a breath of fresh air.