Historic NZ Cars: Mclaren M1A

The Mclaren M1A was the start of a successful career of the late great Bruce Mclaren. It was the first car ever designed and built by Mclaren and his team and it was made to compete in Group 7 racing in America. The M1A is the second car used by Mclaren to enter Group 7 as they used a modified Zerex dubbed the "Zerex Special" due to the large amount of modifications made to the car. (They completely re-engineered the chassis and added an Oldsmobile V8)

The Mclaren was built on a tubular spaceframe chassis that was made of large diameter tubing. The body was made out of lightweight resin and was made in four different sections. The car had a stressed bulkhead and undertray by means of alloy sheet metal being painstakingly riveted and bonded to the chassis. This added to the cars rigidity and ensured the car was tight on the track.

The M1A was powered by a 4.5 litre Oldsmobile V8 that was built by Traco. This was matched to a Hewland LG 4 speed manual transmission. Braking was supplied by dual circuit Girling calipers and discs both front and rear. Suspension was independent all round with unequal wishbones and adjustable coils in the front, and trailing arms with an anti roll bar, reversed lower wishbones and adjustable coils in the rear.

The car was first campaigned in September of 1964 and was the fastest car on the track at it's first event at Mosport in America. Unfortunately, the M1A suffered a broken throttle linkage and was forced out of the race for a significant amount of time while the team repaired it. The Mclaren got back on track in time to take third place but would have won if the throttle linkage held up.

Further on, the M1A was painted an orange/red with a central white stripe instead of the silver and black livery it originally started off in. The car was retired in 1965 in favour of the Mclaren M1B, which was an evolution of the M1A. This car managed to break the lap record at Mosport not once, not twice, but seven times! This got people talking and so Frank Nichols and Peter Agg from the Elva car company got in touch with Mclaren to build customer versions of the M1A. 24 were built in total and were successful on tracks such as Silverstone and Riverside and were driven by racing legends like Chris Amon and Graham Hill. The customer cars could be ordered with either a 4.7 litre Ford Mustang engine or the same 4.5 litre Oldsmobile engine used in the original car.

Overall, the Mclaren M1A is an excellent car and is one of the great success stories of Mclaren that have helped get the company to where they are now. It is also another great story of Kiwi's building groundbreaking race cars. If you would like a particular NZ built car featured, leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Thanks for reading!!!