McLaren Automotive's rebuild continues on 60th anniversary of race team's founding
McLaren
A life-size statue of Bruce McLaren has been unveiled to mark the 50th anniversary of the racing driver and engineer’s death.
As tributes were paid across the world, his daughter Amanda took part in a private ceremony at the headquarters of the team he founded.
Fifty candles were lit alongside a McLaren M8D, a sister car to the one that Bruce drove on his fateful final lap on June 2, 1970.
The bronze statue, by Paul Oz, will stand at the McLaren Technology Centre, where the team’s current chief executive, Zak Brown, said Bruce’s spirit continued to live on.
“It is an honour to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Bruce McLaren by unveiling this wonderfully crafted statue to commemorate his life and achievements,” said Amanda McLaren.
“When my father died in June 1970 – just 12 years after coming to the UK from New Zealand – he had already done so much to realise his ambitions, but the best was still to come.
Amanda McLaren with the statue of her father
McLaren
“McLaren’s accomplishments over more than 50 years in Formula 1, three Indianapolis 500 wins, five successive Can-Am championships, the landmark victory at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans race and the supercars and hypercars designed, developed and built under the McLaren banner, all stand as his legacy.
“June 2 is always an emotional date for us and that’s particularly true this year. Having ‘Dad’ looking out over McLaren is incredibly moving and I know that he would have been so very proud of the achievements made in his name.”
Bruce McLaren was killed at Goodwood, testing McLaren’s M8D, a design that would dominate that year’s Can-Am season, which began just days after the crash.
“Today, on the 50th anniversary of Bruce McLaren’s death, we remember what he created,” said Brown. “Bruce was a racer, an innovator and a leader, and all of us at McLaren strive each day to follow the example he set us. Bruce stands as a hero of our sport, immortalised by this statue which is surrounded by his legacy.
“We take a moment on this important day to mourn his loss, but to also draw inspiration from his life. Bruce’s spirit lives on through all the people that work at McLaren today. We race in his honour, fearlessly forward, in the pursuit of better.”
Earlier in the day, students and staff from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Auckland, where Bruce McLaren studied, paid tribute to him with a Haka.
