Bruce // German GP 🇩🇪, 1962.

An extremely mucky Bruce being interviewed after the Stardust Grand Prix (1966 Can-Am challenge Cup) 🏁

Interviewer: Congratulations Bruce! Third place in the first Canadian-American Challenge Cup series, and second overall in the Stardust Grand Prix, a fine performance for you and your car, are you pleased?

Bruce: [...] We're not too happy but that was as good as we could do, the car-the car ran perfectly, I drove it as hard as it could go and we finished second, yeah that's it.

Bruce wins the 1962 Monaco GP 🇲🇨 after a 100-lap race 🏁

The race had a very confusing start, but the only driver that didn't hesitate was Willy Mairesse, whom blasted into the lead of the race: passing Bruce (3rd) and eventually bumping into Graham (2nd) and Jim (1st) on his way through; but as soon as he reached the Gasworks hairpin, he braked too late and missed the apex and slewed the back of his car, as it travelled across the circuit.

In almost perfect unison, for they had all an equal start, Clark, Hill and McLaren slammed on their own brakes, the Scot, the sharpest to react, almost came to a complete halt on the apex that Mairesse had just missed. Wider lines carried Graham and Bruce past Jim, both managing to find room either side of a sliding Mairesse.

Bruce found himself in the lead, but on the seventh lap he was passed by Graham; the BRM driver held the lead all the way until lap 92 (after various duels with Clark who then retired from the race on lap 55), when an engine failure handed the lead back to the young Kiwi, who with determination held on to win ahead of Ferrari's Phil Hill, who recovered from a spin earlier in the race and was catching up.

Bruce at the New Zealand GP 🇳🇿, 1965.

Bruce // Road America circuit 🇺🇸, 1967.

Bruce taking naps in the most uncomfortable places ever is my new favourite thing <3

“[...] He was a engineer first and foremost. Sometimes in the middle of the race, instead of concentrating on the race itself, he'd be thinking about what he could do to the car. He got the jollies from designing and building as much as driving. ”

Bruce in his 1929 Austin 7 with his father Les // 50s

Les bought the car in pieces for only $110 with the intention of putting it together and sell it, but Bruce, that at the time was only 13 years old, persuaded his father to keep it. Together they built it: an open-topped, spoke-wheeld, chrome-grilled, red racing model.

As soon as the car was finished, Bruce couldn't wait to learn to drive it, he even set up a simple figure-eight racetrack around the fruit trees on the family property: there was a hard-lock turn around the clothes line and the plum tree, and back up past the garage. It was a cheap thrill, but Bruce loved it.

He worked on the car constantly, adding his own modifications: he put a new steering wheel, he hand-painted optimal gear-change points on the speedometer, effectively adding more than 15 kilometers per hour to its top speed; “But at the time it was probably enough, and with that particular car, it was probably dangerous enough too” Bruce said.

In 1954 Les entered the Austin 7 in a hill-climb race at the Muriwai beach, but unfortunately he fell sick and had to be hospitalised. Bruce took his father's place and entered the car into his first race; he went on winning the competition earning his first motor racing success. At the time he was only 15 years old.

Bruce being interviewed by Barry Gillen after Denny Hulme's victory at the Mexican GP 🇲🇽 1969. (Bruce retired just before the start of the grand prix while he was doing the warm-up lap)

Int: I've never seen you so tense even when you're driving

Bruce: Oh that's terrific, that was really a good one to win because he had to go hard absolutely all the way and he beat everyone

Int: The car sounded beautiful

Bruce: It ran just perfectly, thank you Barry

Int: Was there any time you were worried? I mean they seemed to be catching him-

Bruce: All the time, all the time *laughs*

Bruce // 1959 > 1962 > 1968 (from the Grand Prix Photo archive)

Bruce being engulfed by the laurel wreath they gave him after his win at Monaco 🇲🇨, 1962.

Bruce // French GP 🇫🇷, 1962.

“The thing I learned from Bruce,” says Howden Ganley, “is to do whatever needs doing, no excuses. If you get into a problem, the easy thing to do is say ‘oh we can fix that tomorrow.’ That isn’t the way to do it -let’s fix it now. Tonight. Even if it means pulling the guttering off the side of the building or cutting up the secretary’s desk, you do it. Bruce had that in spades when the chips were down. He was a fantastic leader. If he’d come into the workshop one morning and said ‘right chaps, what we’re going to do today is march across the Sahara’, most of us would have said ‘yeah, alright Bruce, if that’s what you think we should do, that’s what we’ll do, when do we start'. You'd do anything for him, he was a leader by example and at night he would stay on and he'd sweep the floor and he'd be there with you, and Tyler Alexander (chief mechanic) was always saying 'Goddamn McLaren, just go home to bed!'”

source: the article "Bruce McLaren: The Man Behind The Marque" from the site www.motorsportmagazine.com and the YouTube video on the Mclaren channel "From humble beginnings"

Bruce on the podium after winning the 24 hours of Le Mans 🇫🇷, 1966.

Sorry but today I haven't got much to offer... here's Bruce just... walking lol

Bruce // Belgian GP 🇧🇪 1968.