Bruce McLaren's daughter, Amanda, talks about her Father, McLaren cars of yesterday and today

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I couldn’t be more proud, Amanda McLaren declared "It’s fabulous to be here, to be part of the team and part of McLaren Automotive."

Amanda was just four years old when her father was killed in a testing accident at Goodwood in 1970. The place to be, to remember her Father after his tragic accident would be with McLaren. As brand Ambassador. Daddy's little girl is all grown-up and like her Father, she is having the time of her life with the cars that her Father created.

McLaren's job is to immerse people in the McLaren brand and be a link to the legacy and heritage that is so important to us. I’ll host visitors to the McLaren Technology and Production Centres, be present at the opening of retailers and at motor shows, and be involved in the McLaren P1 GTR Driver Programme as that rolls out.

Amanda doesn’t know what McLaren might have become had her father lived, but she’s certain he’d be proud of what it has become. ‘For me to be representing McLaren and my father, to not just be part of the past but moving forward in the present, is so exciting. I know he wanted to build road cars, and with his passion and determination that would have happened. Beyond that I wouldn’t speculate, but what McLaren has become he would have approved of. I don’t say it lightly, but I do believe my father would be proud. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to be here.’

RACING HERITAGE

Bruce McLaren started his racing career as a teenager in an ingeniously modified Austin Ulster that his father gave him. A prodigiously talented engineer and racer, he developed his own Formula 1 car in May 1966. It debuted at Monaco and qualified in 10th place with Bruce at the wheel. In the British Grand Prix two months later, McLaren Racing scored its first point in a Formula 1 Grand Prix when Bruce finished sixth. The foundations of our world beating racing team and world leading technology company were laid that day.

Tragically, Bruce died while testing the McLaren M8D at Goodwood in 1970. His death was a devastating blow, but we did not flounder. In memory of Bruce, racing legend Denny Hulme won nine out of 10 Can-Am races in the M8D in 1970. Wins in the Indy 500 followed for McLaren in 1972, 1974 and 1976. Under the control of Teddy Mayer, we took the Formula 1 constructor’s championships in 1974, and driver’s titles with Emerson Fittipaldi and, even more memorably, James Hunt.

ICONIC ROAD CARS

Drawing on 50 years of racing success, McLaren has created some of the most iconic and exhilarating road cars the world has ever seen. During the epochal 1988 season, Team Principal Ron Dennis and Technical Director Gordon Murray began pondering the ultimate road car, a McLaren road car. In 1993 the seminal McLaren F1 was launched. Two years later, the F1 GTR dominated the podium at Le Mans, turning the greatest supercar of its generation into the most successful British race car of modern times.

When we pioneered the carbon monocoque in the McLaren F1, it took 3,000 hours to make each carbon fibre chassis. It now takes just four hours to create the carbon MonoCell at the heart of the 650S. It’s amazing progress, and testament to our unrivalled knowledge of the technology and our unmatched success with it.

From the peerless 650S to the iconic McLaren P1 every car we build incorporates race-bred technology, pioneering innovation and our celebrated obsession with detail. It’s how Bruce did it. It’s how we do it. It’s how it should be done.

Bruce McLaren’s earliest competitive driving experience came at the wheel of a modified 1929 Austin Ulster. Bought in bits by his father who had planned to restore and sell it, 13-year-old Bruce convinced him they could turn it into a race car.

Involved in every stage of the Ulster’s restoration, the experience proved vital for the future race car designer. Two years later, in his race-prepared Ulster, 15-year-old Bruce set the fastest time in the 750cc class at the Muriwai Beach hill climb.

Having left New Zealand for England, Bruce’s Austin Ulster was housed in a small museum until 1989, when it was found and bought by the McLaren Group. Maintained in original condition, the little legend now takes pride of place alongside its faster and more illustrious successors on the boulevard at the MTC.

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