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History of the McLaren brand

McLaren Automotive Limited (Russian McLaren) is a British manufacturer of exclusive sports cars. The company was established as McLaren Cars in 1989 and works closely with McLaren Racing, part of the McLaren Group. Bruce McLaren, the founder of the McLaren team, was not only a driver, but also an engineer. He founded his own Bruce McLaren Motor Racing team at the end of 1963. From this moment begins the glorious history of the McLaren team. Bruce McLaren’s first car was the M1, powered by an Oldsmobile engine.

McLaren M1 raced in the CanAm series in 1964. In 1966, Bruce starts the Grand Prix in a car of his own design and begins to work on the Ford sports car program, but before that he managed to release the M3 model, which raced in Formula Libre and was subsequently used in filming about the Grand Prix series.

In 1968, McLaren chief designer Robin Hurd created the new McLaren M7 and Ford provided the team with their new Cosworth DFV engines. This was the beginning of the team’s ascent in Formula 1 class racing. In 1970, the team decided to take part in the Indycar series, for which the McLaren M15 was created. For Formula 1, the M14A was created. The Formula 5000 featured a modified M10 and the CanAm series also featured a modified M8.

But the successful start of the 70th ended in tragedy. First, during the tests of the M15, Danny Hulme received serious burns to his hands as a result of a fire, and after him, Bruce McLaren crashed during the tests of the M8 CanAm car on the Goodwood track. It was a big blow for the team. Everyone believed that without the energy and talent of this man, the team would not last long. But no one guessed that the real triumph and victories were yet to come.

After the death of McLaren, the team was led by Teddy Mayer for ten years, then in 1982 it was headed by Ron Dennis, and over the past twenty years, McLaren International has achieved tremendous success that the founder himself would have appreciated. In 1987, Gordon Murray joined McLaren, the designer of 34 racing cars that won 41 Grand Prix races.

In 1988, he presented the concept of a supercar to McLaren executive Ron Dennis, who was captivated by the project. The result of the negotiations was the creation of McLaren Cars Ltd on March 17, 1989. In the same year, the company began developing the car, which resulted in the first McLaren F1 road car, released in 1992. The company’s second car was the 2011 MP4-12C supercar, equipped with a 3.8-liter V8 engine and a 7-speed gearbox.