THE FIRST MCLAREN SUPERCAR
It is now 50 years since Bruce McLaren died on 2 June 1970, leaving the motor racing world in shock. At that time, Bruce’s Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd was one of the most famous racing teams in the world, dominating racetracks in Europe and the US.
While the loss of a founder, technical genius, and star driver would have resulted in most racing enterprises imploding, McLaren carried on — and how! It is now the second oldest team in Formula 1 (F1), next to Ferrari, and these days is probably better known to a wider audience for its production supercars than its F1 cars.
Most believe that the supercar dynasty started with the McLaren F1. However, at the time of Bruce’s death, testing was already under way on what could have been McLaren’s first production supercar. Just a year earlier, in 1969, work had begun on converting the very successful M6A Can-Am car into a road car. The purpose of the car was twofold: first, to prove that McLaren could convert its race car nous into top-shelf sports cars; and second, to build enough McLaren M6GT road cars to homologate them for racing at Le Mans in the Group 4 series. Bruce wanted a car to challenge the GT40s, Lola T70s, and Ferraris making headlines at that time.
