McLaren Racing Team's New Car

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30531, 28 August 1964, Page 9

McLaren Racing Team's New Car

THE McLaren sports-racing car will make its competitive debut in the Canadian Grand Prix for sports cars on the Mosport circuit, near Toronto, on September 26. In the accompanying photograph, McLaren (on the extreme left) is shown pointing out the lines of his new sports car on a quarter-scale model to the New Zealand members of his motor-racing team in England, from left to right: W. Wiillmott (Timaru), who’ has been McLaren's racing mechanic for three years; B. Harre (Wanganui), and H. Ganley (Hamilton), who joined him as racing mechanics this year; and Eoin Young (Timaru), McLaren's secretary and a director of his company.

The McLaren car will be powered by a race-tuned 4.5litre Oldsmobile engine and mav be capable of about 200 miles an hour. Together with McLaren’s successful Cooper-Oldsmobile and his Formula Tasman single-seater Coopers, it is being prepared in a new 3000 sq. ft racing workshop of ' modern design at Feltham, near London Airport. Design

The new model incorporates McLaren’s own design ideas as well as work by skilled consultants in many fields. The chassis is a tubular space frame reinforced with magnesium sheet. Large diameter light gauge mam tubes carry oil and water. The undertray and cockpit bulk-

head are magnesium sheet attached to the tubular structure with epoxy glue and aircraft rivets. The front and rear bulk heads, which are used to carry the majority of the suspension, gearbox, steering and pedal mounting points, are fabricated out of sheet steel. The rear suspension is midway between wishbone and radius-rod type, while the front suspension has broadbased wishbones. Two saddle tanks made of aluminium wrapped in fibreglass cloth form the body sides and front and rear

wheel wells. .Tank capacity is about 36 gallons. Building, preparing, and racing his own cars has been an ambition of McLaren’s since his early competition days. He had completed the first two years of an engineering degree at Auckland University when a motor) racing scholarship provided by the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association interrupted his studies permanently and launched him on his career of professional motor racing. Racing his own Cooper in New Zealand during the European off-season provided experience in running his own team, and in 1963 he formed Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, Ltd., to field a racing team which would enter cars in the Tasman races, as well as in events in Britain and America.

On his return to England in 1964 McLaren decided to try sports car racing. He bought the successful exPenske Zerex special which had won many races in the United States until racetuned American V 8 engines rendered the small 2.7 Climax-engined car obsolete. McLaren decided a small, light sports car with a lightweight American V 8 engine developing about 300bhp,

could defeat larger an 4 more powerful cars through its superior- power to weight ratio.

For the early races in England he kept the Climax engine in the rather flexible chassis, which was originally a formula one Cooper frame, and won at Aintree and Silverstone. Prototype After these wins the Zerex disappeared and the forerunner of the first McLaren took its place. A new, stronger and smaller chassis was built, and fitted with a 3.9- litre Oldsmobile V 8 engine. The Cooper suspension was retained, and the new car called a CooperOldsmobile. It won first time out at Mosport, where it headed home all the larger American machinery, and in the Guards Trophy race at Brands Hatch it won again. While the . new . sports car has occupied pride of place in the workshop, McLaren’s Tasman championship Cooper-Climax is being modi-

fled for the 1965 Tasman season, and a new Tasman Cooper based on the latest formula one car, is being built at the Cooper works.

McLaren's new Tasman Cooper will use the latest formula one front suspension with inboard springs and shock absorbers, and the rear of the chassis has been altered to accommodate a fourcylinder 2.5 litre Coventry Climax engine.

Colours McLaren racing colours are now a brighter shade of green than the traditional British racing green and a broad white stripe runs from nose to tail of the car. Events on the team’s crowded calendar are the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood with the Cooper-Oldsmobile tomorrow; the first run with the new sports car at Mosport on September 26, Laguna Seca in California on October 9, and Riverside the next week-end. The United States sports car series closes with Nassau Speed Week early in December.