After swapping his native New Zealand for the racing hotbed of Europe, Bruce McLaren set off on another great journey, working his way up from the youngest ever Grand Prix winner to an incredibly successful race car manufacturer.
Despite the successes of his McLaren team, however, he was always looking to the horizon and one of his long-held desires was to create a Group 6 McLaren production car that could be sold as a road-going super car–and, more importantly to Bruce, raced at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.
So, true-to-form, he followed his dream of building the fastest mid-engine car the world had ever seen. He based his new road-racer on his highly-successful Can-Am designs, placing a stylish coupe body on top of the successful M6 monocoque chassis. The M6GT was born.
The first of three prototypes was produced in January 1969, but when homologation requirements changed and the project became too unwieldy for Mclaren to take on–especially without the initial promotion of the cars on the track–the M6GT race program was scrapped, leaving a tiny collection of what were essentially road-legal race cars.
The first prototype, which had been built at McLaren’s factory, became Bruce’s personal car and while one of the other two, produced by Trojan-Lambretta, did get to see the business-end of a track, Bruce’s M6GT project failed to get off the ground and, devastatingly, died with its creator in 1970.
Sadly only one factory-built model of the iconic McLaren, hailed by Road & Track magazine as “the wildest road car”, remains, so the only way most of us are going to get to climb inside the imagination of a true automotive pioneer is to purchase one on Simraceway. And for those of you who want to fully experience Bruce McLaren’s dream, today marks the launch of a brand new Hot Lap Event pitting the M6GT against the twists, turns, and cattle grids of Longstone Pass.
To enter (assuming you already own an M6GT), click here for the Advanced Event and here for the Intermediate Event. To purchase this awesome car, click here and select BUY NOW. For tips on “taming the beast”, see our previous post. See you at the start line!
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