You may have heard of McLaren cars; they’re ridiculously expensive, ridiculously fast, and probably ridiculous in a couple of other ways too. They come from the McLaren company, which originally just built racing cars because Bruce McLaren, who founded it, was a racing driver.
McLaren was born in 1937 in New Zealand and probably got interested in racing cars because his father, Les McLaren, raced cars too. And built them in his auto repair shop, where young Bruce hung out whenever he could. He started his racing career early; driving in a hillclimb race when he was just 14. By the time he was 20, he came in second in the a New Zealand championship racing series. His success wasn’t just due to his driving; he also constantly worked on his racing car, improving everything he could.
Based on his success in New Zealand racing, the national racing organization awarded him a trip to Europe, where he joined the Cooper racing team. They put him in their Formula 2 series, but there was one race, in Germany, where both Formula 2 and the faster Formula 1 cars raced together. To everybody’s surprise (except possibly McLaren’s), he came in first among the F2 cars and beat all but the top 5 F1 cars as well.
The Cooper team moved him up to Formula 1 and he promptly won the US Grand Prix when he was just 22. That made him the youngest Grand Prix winner ever — his record stood for 40 years. In 1965 McLaren formed his own racing team, and won a Grand Prix the next year in the first racing car ever called a McLaren.
In 1967 a new racing series appeared: Can-Am. McLaren switched from Formula 1 to Can-Am, and he designed the teams racing cars — and proved to be an even better designer than driver, when they won all 11 races in 1968, finishing in all three top places in two of them. McLaren drove one of his own cars, but died in a crash when testing a new design in 1970. His company is still in business, though, and now sells cars to the general public (well, the ultra-rich part of the general public) for up to $2 million each. He’s been inducted into a number of racing halls of fame and the New Zealand business hall of fame. At least two racing tracks are named for him, and in 2017 a documentary film about him debuted. And he would probably be happy to know that McLaren cars (which are legal to drive on the road) are at least as fast as the fastest racing cars he ever designed. Of course, if you get caught driving on on the road at that speed, you’ll be in a bit of trouble — but hey, maybe they won’t be able to catch you.
