The Life and Legacy of Bruce McLaren
The racing world is driven (no pun intended) by passionate individuals. Behind every steering wheel and engineering team are people who love motorsport, who have loved it since they were young, and will continue to give all of themselves to it as they grow older. Once such individual was Bruce McLaren, the racing driver and car company president who was successful at both roles despite his young age. McLaren as a brand has been successful and synonymous with racing performance for decades, and it’s all to do with the time and care Bruce put into his work when the company started. Unfortunately, Bruce McLaren may have never reached his full potential; a fatal crash at the age of 30 robbed the world of the wonderful visionary he was and the better one he was becoming. For that reason, it is only fair to emphasize the things he did accomplish and how his passion for McLaren gave it the push it needed to become one of the automotive world’s best today.
Bruce McLaren was born on August 30, 1937 in Auckland, New Zealand, and his upbringing revolved around cars from the beginning. His parents, Les and Ruth, were car mechanics by trade, and Les’ passion for club racing was quickly picked up by Bruce. Despite an early diagnosis of Perthes Disease (which meant his left leg was permanently shorter than his right), Bruce was by no means content to just watch people drive cars.? At 14 years old, Bruce entered a hill climb race, winning the 750cc class and elevating his racing interest to a racing hobby. He mastered street cars over the next few years, dominating in local club events behind the wheels of Austin-Healy and Ford sedans. Then, in the late 1950s, he tried his hand at Formula Two racing, at which he was an immediate success. He was in fact so successful that he dropped out of college in his first year to pursue his driving career full-time, a move that would afford him bigger and better opportunities. One such opportunity was a driver’s slot in the 1958 New Zealand Grand Prix, which he performed well enough in to gain the notice of the race’s governing organization. They decided that Bruce was the perfect candidate for their “Driver to Europe” initiative, which would send a New Zealander to the headquarters of a European racing team for an extended stay. Bruce arrived at Cooper Motorsports later that year, and although neither he nor the Cooper staff knew it, one of the most remarkable F1 careers ever was about to begin.?
Before he could sit behind the wheel of an F1 car, though, Bruce had to prove that his victory at the New Zealand Grand Prix wasn’t just a fluke. 1958’s German Grand Prix would act as his proving ground, and this race was on none other than the fearsome Nürburgring. This specific year’s race allowed F1 and F2 cars to complete, so Bruce was able to use a car with which he was already familiar. Despite the track’s reputation for danger, Bruce drove like a missile, finishing 5th overall and 1st in the F2 class. Needless to say this was a shocking victory; many considered the gap in speed and skill between the two car classes to be significant, but anyone watching Bruce McLaren that day was shown that that was not the case. Any onlookers who were wondering what the young driver could do with the power of an F1 car didn’t have to wait long. Cooper Motorsports decided that Bruce’s talents would be more useful on their F1 team, signing him as one of their drivers in 1959. Their gamble immediately paid off when Bruce won the United States Grand Prix that year, making him the youngest ever Grand Prix winner–a record that would stand unbroken for the next 44 years. As a result of this victory, Bruce McLaren became a household name in the F1 community almost overnight, and the thought on everybody’s mind was: “What will he do next?”
Obviously, he would keep on winning. Cooper prioritized Bruce in the seasons to come and he certainly made good on his organization’s belief in him. In 1960, Bruce won right off the bat at the season-starting Argentine Grand Prix. He and fellow Cooper driver Jack Brabham would take second and first place on the overall season podium, respectively. Soon after, Bruce would also win the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix–the most coveted Grand Prix title in all of F1–and take third place on the overall podium that year.
Despite his victories behind the wheels of Coopers, though, Bruce had long wanted to create a car of his own. His upbringing in a mechanics’ shop saw him tweaking and modifying almost every car he had ever raced, and by the early 60s he was ready to start work on some prototypes. Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, known today as simply McLaren, was founded in 1963, and from the beginning the team knew that they were part of something special. Bruce was instrumental in every aspect of the company’s work, from designing the cars to actually assembling them to test driving them. He considered every coworker a true peer, creating a workplace that was as comfortable and fun as it was innovative. Bruce also swept the floor of the only factory building; there was truly no part of working at McLaren that he considered above or below him.
As his cars neared production, Bruce would continue to enter competition races with other organizations to great success. In 1966, he and co-driver Chris Amon would win 1st place at the 24 Hours at Le Mans in a Ford GT40, assisting the auto magnate in claiming all three podium spots. From then on, it was time for his cars to shine, and shine they very well did. The first backdrop for McLaren automotive supremacy was the Can-Am racing series, where cars of all classes and makes competed on the same tracks across the United States and Canada. In its inaugural year of 1966, McLaren’s distinctive Papaya Orange cars took two 2nd place and three 3rd place finishes. Victories began to pour in after that: five out of six races won in 1967, four out of six in 1968, and eleven out of eleven in 1969. A dynasty was clearly in the making, but not just on the western circuit. Back in Europe, Bruce had also been working on a F1 car of his very own. He and fellow New Zealander Denny Hulme made up the McLaren F1 team in 1968 when the car debuted, and Bruce won the Belgian Grand Prix handily behind the wheel of a car he built from the ground up. Despite a lack of first place finishes, he and Hulme’s efforts still resulted in an overall third place standing at the end of the next season in 1969. At the end of this season–and of this decade–it was that Bruce McLaren was among the most multitalented racing drivers that the world had ever seen.
That fact, unfortunately, makes the next part of the story all the more tragic. On June 2nd, 1970, Bruce was on the track testing out the next incarnation of the M8D, the car his drivers used in the Can-Am series. Out of nowhere, the car’s spoiler and other rear bodywork detached, causing a significant loss in downforce–and control–for Bruce. His car rammed into a bunker at high speed, killing him instantly. Bruce was only 32 years old, and for his family, his company, and his fans, his loss was brutally unfair. He had been a man whose talent with cars and unflinchingly kind demeanor made him a treasure in every sense. Fortunately for Bruce, his team at McLaren was not content to let his sacrifice mean nothing. The Can-Am series opening loomed, and the company put everything they had into making sure that the M8Ds Bruce died preparing still had a fighting chance at success. After that inaugural race–which, of course, the McLaren cars swept–it was clear that the fire that Bruce had instilled in his team was not going away anytime soon.
Today, McLaren is among the most recognizable and successful car manufacturers in the world. They are the second-winningest team in F1 behind Ferrari, and are also among the most innovative when it comes to making high-tech, incredibly fast super- and hypercars. Bruce’s trademark flair–including his favorite Papaya Orange paint color and the “nostril” hood indentations that gave his Can-Am cars the aerodynamics they needed–is still in use by his company today as a way to continually honor its namesake. His family’s continued involvement in the company is also a tribute to the man he was; his wife Patty was a McLaren racing’s number one fan until her passing in 2016, and his daughter Amanda is a brand ambassador and board member of McLaren who maintains that even though it’s been a long time since Bruce’s death, “his legacy was passed on.” Even though we and the entire racing world wish that the company was still in Bruce’s hands, it’s in capable ones all the same, and we’re always excited to see what they do next. So when the company reveals their next groundbreaking car or takes their next Grand Prix win, remember that man who made it all come together in the first place.
References: