1966 McLaren Chevrolet M1B Sports-Racing Two-Seater 30/18
During the mid-1960s two great racing drivers followed the lead of their friend and mentor – the great Sir Jack Brabham – by developing their own racing teams and manufacturing facilities to build cars of their own. One was Dan Gurney and the other was Bruce McLaren – whose new Bruce McLaren Motor Racing organisation found its feet by creating new Tasman Formula and sports-racing cars. The latter were aimed at the contemporary Group 7 unlimited-capacity class which developed into the CanAm Challenge series machines of 1966-74. This multi-tubular spaceframe McLaren-Chevrolet is an example of the second design to issue from the McLaren team’s drawing office and its rounded body was styled by none other than celebrated motor racing and aviation artist Michael Turner.
The McLaren sports-racing car line had been founded in 1964 by purchase of Roger Penske’s highly modified Cooper-Climax ‘ZereX Special’ into which was installed a lightweight medium-capacity Oldsmobile V8 engine. An in-house replacement chassis was then designed which emerged as the McLaren-Oldsmobile M1A design and for 1965 McLaren signed a manufacturing agreement with industrialist Peter Agg’s Trojan company which had just acquired Elva Cars Ltd. While the McLaren works team would develop original new designs and campaign its own works cars, Trojan put the model into production for customer sale under the McLaren-Elva name.
This arrangement worked very well and the cars were successful although at top level underpowered compared with the latest 5.5 and 6-litre Chevrolet V8-engined Lola T70s. The new M1B model was launched in September 1965, and through 1965 the works M1Bs in brick-red livery excelled in British events and starred in a tremendous rivalry with the big Lolas. By 1967 McLaren had developed new monocoque-chassised M6A cars with which Bruce himself and team-mate Denny Hulme took the CanAm Championship title while numerous M1Bs such as the car offered here shone in private hands, the cars being sold in the United States as the McLaren-Elva ‘Mark 2’.
