After the excitement of the centenary and the very beautiful Alpine exhibition, the 24 Hours of Le Mans museum continues its dynamic by offering us a new subject on a manufacturer returning to Sarthe after a golden age in the 90s: McLaren . Because yes, the Woking brand has not only produced (brilliant) Formula 1s! Here is the proof.
Bruce avant McLaren
Being interested in the history of McLaren is first of all being interested in the story of a man: Bruce McLaren. New Zealand driver born August 30, 1937 in Auckland, he climbed the ranks of motorsport then in his country then in Europe until arriving in Formula 1 in 1959 with the Cooper team for which he raced for six years. Bruce was a very good driver and for a very long time held the “record” for the youngest winner by winning, at the age of 22, the 1959 United States Grand Prix at the Sebring circuit.
During this period he also raced in endurance, notably at Daytona and Le Mans for, among others, Aston Martin and Ford. He is also in the team which developed the legendary GT40 and won the classic Mancelle in 1966 with this car. A first link with Le Mans which explains the presence of a beautiful, immaculate white GT40 at the opening of the exhibition.
The first McLarens
Inspired by the adventure of his friend Jack Brabham (and former Cooper teammate), he ventured to launch his own team. Thus the structure “Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd” was founded in 1963. With his brand, he achieved his first successes in CanAm (sports prototype series in North America) with Cooper chassis.
But his great desire was also to build his own cars, because Bruce was also a very good mechanic. The Elva M1A is the first racing car designed by the brand’s workshops in 1965. Designed because McLaren does not yet have all the means to build it and it therefore joined forces with the small British craftsman Elva. Designed to meet the Group 7 regulations, it foreshadows the open prototypes that would be all the rage in the 70s.
Bruce McLaren also wants Formula 1 for his brand, he can finally “build” it himself. He therefore left Cooper and launched the M2B, his first single-seater, in 1966. McLaren knows how to surround itself and is recruiting a young engineer who worked on the Concorde aeronautical project for its car. His name: Robin Herd.
The influence of aviation is felt on the definition of the car chassis with the use of composite or “sandwich” materials such as mallite for the bodywork. Well, let’s be honest, the M2B was not a success on a sporting level but it is what has the merit of launching the brand in Formula 1 and already instills the spirit of innovation and research.
McLaren will soon experience success, however. Bruce will have the immense joy and honor of opening his team’s track record in 1968 at the Belgian Grand Prix on the very selective Spa-Francorchamps circuit (in the 14.1km version at the time, with among others the famous and feared Masta bend).
Other successes will quickly be added, notably with another “kiwi”, the 1966 world champion Denny Hulme who had joined Bruce’s adventure in 1968. An M14A from 1970 continues the exhibition. With this beautiful and cheerful “papaya” shade it reminds us of the original colors of the team.
The M14A began its career brilliantly with two second places at Kyalami for the faithful Hulme and in Spain for the “boss” Bruce McLaren. Unfortunately, this will be Bruce’s last podium in Formula 1, he will die weeks later. On June 2, 1970 Bruce McLaren tested one of his CanAm prototypes during a private test session on the Goodwood circuit. The hood of the prototype flew off, unbalancing the car. She hits the rail very violently, Bruce dies instantly.
A complicated period begins for the team, taken over by Teddy Mayer who was until then sporting director but also the right arm and a great friend of Bruce Mc Laren. The two men had raced together in Formula Tasmane on the other side of the globe.
Despite the painful events, Teddy Mayer manages to stay the course. He found the support of a tobacco cowboy so that the finances were not “badly messed up” and the team won its first two drivers’ championships with Emerson Fitipaldi in 1974 and James Hunt in 1976.
But the end of the decade is complicated, the results are clearly at half mast. The M28 present in the exhibition will only hang on one podium. The red and white sponsor put Mayer under pressure for Ron Dennis to take over, which would happen at the end of 1980. Relegated to minor roles, Teddy Mayer left McLaren two years later.
McLarne in the Project 4 era
Then begins the Don Dennis era, surely one of the most beautiful and glorious in the history of the team. Just the name of the drivers such as Lauda, Prost, Senna or even Häkkinen will remind you of the red and white cars (gray and black at the end of the 90s) and especially their successes.
Dennis manages to obtain the best engines for McLaren: Tag-Porsche, Honda, Mercedes… victories and titles accumulate for more than 20 years. The MP4/23 from 2008 concludes the “single-seater” series of the exhibition. It is with this mount that a very young British driver will glean his very first world crown, a certain Lewis Hamilton.
Back to Le Mans
Facing the former World Champion, we return to the 70s and a touch of papaya thanks to a pretty and impressive M8F. A CanAm prototype powered by an 8-liter Chevrolet V8. The M8F is impressive but also powerful! Peter Revson and Denny Hulme (him again) finished first and second respectively in the 1971 championship. The “F” version is the culmination of the McLaren M8 prototype series in CanAm. It also demonstrates the awareness and progress in terms of aerodynamics at the level of the snout, rear wing, fins and side air intakes…
We now enter the second part of the temporary exhibition. Yes second part, because this temporary exhibition is extraordinarily rich. 13 cars are present there, compared to the usual 5 or 6.
In the space usually reserved for temporary exhibitions we zoom into the 90s and endurance with not one, not two… not even three but four McLaren F1 GTRs! 4 McLarens with 4 different decorations for the one who was a queen of endurance and GT races as evidenced by her track record at Le Mans or in BPR races.
What they have in common is having competed in, and finished, the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. We therefore have the yellow “Harolds” and the blue “Gulf” which finished 3rd and 4th respectively. The Gulf blue is of course a nod to the glorious 917 (already featured at the museum) as well as the Mirage prototypes.
Facing this already very nice pair, we find the two other F1 GTRs. On the right a car which “only” finished 13th but which stands out due to its decoration since it is an Art-Car: the famous McLaren “César”. The one who “tattooed on its bodywork” the compression of Hervé Poulain’s trophies by César is an achievement by Filipovitch (who has, as one might say, a small track record in ArtCar). Caesar actually only signed it at the very end.
On the left we have the “last” McLaren of the quartet… last in quote because the black Ueno Clinic n°59 covered no less than 298 laps of the Sarthe circuit in the expert hands of Yannick Dalmas, Masanori Sekiya and JJ Lehto and especially crossed the line of the 1995 “24 Hours” as a winner. A Le Mans winner!
A few little anecdotes from history in this whole story. First of all, if the McLarens were powered in Formula 1 by the German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz, the GTRs were powered by a V12 of German origin from… BMW! McLaren was therefore working with two “enemy brothers” at the same time.
The GT project was launched in 1991 under the pencil of Gordon Murray, before signing with Mercedes. And if the McLaren F1 GTR only won once in Sarthe, its V12 BMW S70 won again 4 years later, in 1999 in the Bavarian V12 LMR prototype. Yannick Dalmas was still in the case. Finally, McLaren, by winning Le Mans in 1995, achieved the “constructors’ triple crown by winning in its history at Indianapolis, Monaco, and Le Mans!
Among the F1 GTRs is a little nugget that would go almost unnoticed, even though it is somewhere the first road-going McLaren, I called the M6 GT. The McLaren prototypes had great success in CanAm, and the M6A particularly shone in 1967. This gave Bruce McLaren the idea of launching a road car to participate in GT races.
Powered by a Chevrolet V8, it wanted to become the fastest GT in the world. Bruce regularly used the M6 GT rolling prototype for his daily commute. But the constraint by the FIA to produce 50 examples for homologation and the disappearance of Bruce McLaren will lead to the end of the project. It is therefore a unique car that we have before our eyes.
Finally, one last little pleasure, an ex-Lando Norris MCL35M from the 2021 season. It is here dressed in the Gulf livery. From the M3B to this “35M”, we measure here the long path of McLaren in single-seaters, and also the length of today’s Formula 1s (between liner and barge, my heart is swinging).
But between these two single-seaters it is also all the glory and the track record of McLaren that must be remembered. McLaren the Man and McLaren the brand. A story and a name that has been built and continues to be built… a name for eternity.
“McLaren, a name for Eternity”, temporary exhibition from December 14 to July 7, 2025
24 Hours of Le Mans Museum
9 place Luigi Chinetti
72100 Le Mans
Information and prices on the museum’s official website.
