McLaren Page #4

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And Bruce said, "Yes, you can brake

after it, but be very, very careful."

Timmy went out and never came back.

COLIN:
The vehicle landed

a little sideways into a tree.

The car was virtually broken in two

behind the cockpit,

and, you know,

it just killed him instantly.

It was really our first tragedy.

This was the first time

that it struck so close to home.

When you speak to somebody minutes before

and they're no longer with you,

it affects you quite deeply.

But there was a race the next day.

And the team turned up...

and we raced the next day.

(ENGINES SCREAM)

JAN McLAREN:
They'd seriously talked

about Bruce not racing,

but decided that, you know,

we must carry on.

This is our business, this is what we do.

At Timmy's funeral, the eulogy Bruce wrote

really was the mantra

that the team followed from then on.

BRUCE:
The news that he'd died instantly

was a terrible shock to all of us.

But who's to say that

he had not seen more, done more,

and learned more in his 26 years

than many people do in a lifetime.

To do something well is so worthwhile

that to die trying to do it better

cannot be foolhardy.

It would be a waste of life

to do nothing with one's ability.

I feel that life is measured

in achievement, not in years alone.

At the end of that Tasman series,

we went back to England,

not quite sure what the future

was going to hold.

HOWDEN GANLEY:

Eoin Young called me up and said,

"Bruce is here. He wants to talk to you."

Bruce came on the line and said,

"I'm expanding my team,

would you like to work for me?"

He wanted to hire more Kiwis.

"Yes, please.

Thank you very much. I'll do that."

PHIL:
New Zealand mechanics

were very innovative.

They had learned how to build cars

in our little country,

where it was very difficult to get parts.

And so they could make

completely new components.

HOWDEN:
You know the old saying,

if you give a Kiwi a length of number

eight fencing wire, he'll make anything.

So he liked that attitude,

'cause that's how he was.

Bruce McLaren now had a team

but didn't have a workshop.

Our tow car had a rusty old trailer.

And Eoin Young was sent out urgently

to try and find us a workshop.

EOIN:
In retrospect, it was terrible.

It was very small but in fact

it suited us perfectly at the time.

WALLY:
What he came up with was

the corner of a large industrial garage

that was used for servicing

earth-moving machinery.

HOWDEN:
With what was virtually

a dirt floor.

It probably had been concrete once,

but with all the bulldozers

moving around, it was broken up.

Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in England

started in a very grotty shed.

Well, that ought to do it.

(EXPLOSION)

(HORSE NEIGHS)

COLIN:
Money.

(LAUGHS)

It takes an awful lot of money

to run a team.

Mechanics, drivers, transportation.

Bruce was up against Lotus, Maserati

and, of course, Coopers and Ferrari.

There was a payroll to meet every week.

(TYRES SCREECH)

Bruce was asked to drive

big American sports cars,

particularly as a test driver.

EOIN:
Ford used Bruce a lot, because

they appreciated his technical ability.

With his engineering background,

Bruce could drive the car,

and he could tell the engineers

exactly what was happening.

BRUCE HARR:
Bruce needed the money

from Ford.

WALLY:
There was no money in Formula 1.

The McLaren team really

was being financed doing testing,

and we'd do anything up

to three or four hundred miles a day.

There wasn't a lot of money at the time.

They did a lot of tire testing

for Firestone, which paid good money.

CHRIS:
Just wonderful experience.

So I knew Bruce quite well by the time

I started working for him.

MICHAEL CLARK:
These were guys,

none of them had hit 30,

and they were full of enthusiasm, full

of innovations, and they were smart.

WALLY:
We all spoke his language,

we all shared his humor,

and we were all totally dedicated to him.

He worked along with us. He didn't

stand there and issue instructions.

He would be there with his

sleeves rolled up.

BRUCE:
I think now the cars

like the big GT cars,

which we drive at Le Mans,

Nrburgring and so on,

they'll do 200 mile an hour,

and they also accelerate like mad,

spin the wheels, you can't keep

full throttle all the time,

and this is a lot more fun.

WALLY:
Bruce decided sports car racing

might be the way to go

for the fledgling McLaren team.

He'd heard of a car that was for sale

in America, called a Zerex Special.

Teddy Mayer was back in America,

with his life in tatters

because of the death of his brother,

Timmy.

And Bruce said, "How would you like

to try and buy this car for me,

and come to England?"

- We chopped the chassis up.

- Put an Oldsmobile engine into it.

EOIN:
Big stack exhaust pipes

so it looked like something from Mars.

WALLY:
Threw it on a plane, took it

to Canada, and won at Mosport.

COMMENTATOR:
Bruce McLaren

from Auckland, New Zealand

gets the checkered flag.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We, in Europe, were racing for peanuts,

and for us to go to America

and see the sort of money

that was available was mind-blowing.

PHIL:
With his new team,

Bruce needed management.

What about a mechanical means

of taking the nuts off?

- Like Tyrell's air wrenches.

- BRUCE:
Wouldn't be a bad idea.

MICHAEL CLARK:
Teddy Mayer was a lawyer.

He became the business brains

of the operation.

WALLY:
He took one look around

the workshop and said,

"Goddamn, you can't work here."

And so Eoin Young was sent out again.

Eoin Young got us what was

a really upmarket workshop in Feltham.

EOIN:
It was 10,000 feet,

the ideal place to start up.

HOWDEN:
It had lots of windows,

and a good concrete floor,

and nice work benches, and even an office.

WALLY:
And Bruce decided

to start with a clean sheet of paper,

and we would build the first ever McLaren.

BRUCE:
This year we decided that the car

that would probably win

would be a lightweight car powered

by a relatively big American engine.

WALLY:
The McLaren M1.

Bruce basically sketched

with a piece of chalk on the floor

what we were gonna do.

HOWDEN:
It was instantaneous stuff.

There was no time to draw.

The chap would come in at night and say,

"What have you made today?"

"I've made a couple of wishbones here.

Just draw those."

EOIN:
I had an office with a sign

on the door that said,

"Don't knock.

We don't have that sort of time."

GARY:
Bruce was famous

for just waving his arms and saying,

"You know, just make it like this."

Whoosh, you'd take some tubes,

and bonk, you've got a chassis.

GARY:
That was one of Bruce's favorite

terms "Just whoosh bonk."

And of course that stuck, then

everything was "whoosh bonk" after that.

But it was anything but whoosh bonk.

WALLY:
The day we wheeled it out

of the workshop, painted black,

with a silver stripe,

and a little Kiwi badge on it,

was a very, very proud moment

for all us New Zealanders.

BRUCE HARR:
Bruce went off to America

to run that car.

GARY:
And you'd kind of pack up

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