Media Information EMBARGOED: 12:04.GMT, 21 January 2013
2013: CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF McLAREN
‘Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.’
When a 27-year-old Bruce McLaren penned those words in 1964, his new company, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, was less than a year old.
In those days, Bruce’s vision was shared by fewer than half a dozen loyal souls, who slogged across the world to race his self-made cars. Nowadays, the McLaren Group employs more than 2000 people, all of whom still share Bruce’s ideals of combining sportsmanship with solid engineering practice and cutting-edge technical expertise.
On September 2nd 2013, the McLaren Group will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
If we were to follow Bruce’s words to the letter, there’d be little time for recollection, but on the eve of our half-century there’s surely time for the briefest of breaths and the opportunity to take a look behind us at the sweeping vista built up in the indelible shadow of our founder:
Our Formula 1 team has become a global household name; since our arrival in the sport, at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, we have won more races (182) than any other constructor, started from pole position 155 times and scored 151 fastest laps. In 2012, we achieved the fastest-ever time for a Formula 1 pitstop (2.31s at Hockenheim), recorded our 58th consecutive points-scoring finish, an all-time record, and have now led more than 10,000 racing laps. The exploits of our greatest world champions will always bring F1 to life: Emerson Fittipaldi ignited the passion of his native Brazil; James Hunt created as many headlines on the front pages as on the back; Niki Lauda and Alain Prost turned sport to science; the burning intensity of Ayrton Senna will live on for ever, while Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton will always be remembered for their raw speed and fearless aggression. Our legacy in North American sportscar racing is writ equally large: in the heyday of the mighty CanAm series, we steamrollered the opposition, lifting five successive championship trophies (1967-1971) and winning an incredible 43 races in our iconic, thundering V8-engined sportscars. We went to the Indy 500 for the first time in 1970, returning with greater strength until we won the USA’s most famous motor race in 1974 with Johnny Rutherford. We repeated the feat with Rutherford in 1976, too. Today, every single car in Formula 1, the Indycar Series and NASCAR relies upon McLaren Electronics’ standardised ECUs to control their engines and feed data back to the garage. Introduced back in 1993, the McLaren F1 road car has lost none of its unique appeal and is still considered by many to be automotive world’s definitive supercar. To this day, it remains the fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world. In GTR racing guise, it won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, also scooping third, fourth and fifth places on its debut in 1995. The next roadcar project was with German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz, and saw the successful build of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, which became the best-selling carbon-based car ever. Since its launch in 2010, McLaren Automotive has developed into a world-class road car manufacturer, successfully developing and building the 12C and the 12C Spider high performance sports cars. Both models exploit our unparalleled understanding of carbon fibre and electronic driver systems to create a groundbreaking product of unequalled weight, strength, performance and driveability. In a return to our sportscar roots, the debut of the 12C GT3 was an unqualified success, scoring 19 victories on its competitive debut in 2012. In September, as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes crossed the flag to win in Monza, McLaren’s GT cars also took top spot at races in British, French and Spanish championships – an incredible achievement. Fittingly, this year, McLaren Automotive stands poised to open its 50 th global dealership ahead of the worldwide launch of the P1™ – our newest model and a machine that’s set to rewrite the definition of the modern supercar. Away from the track, McLaren leads the world in the application of Formula 1 technology and expertise to other industries. McLaren Applied Technologies helped British cyclists, rowers, sailors and canoeists win 15 gold medals last summer. We worked alongside Specialized to design Mark Cavendish’s world championship-winning S-Works Venge bicycle. Working with Birmingham Children’s hospital, we have improved the monitoring of sick children in intensive care. McLaren has also designed systems to help the Bay Area Rapid Transit railway in San Francisco to run more efficiently and to reduce the CO 2 emissions from plane movements at airports.
It’s all a long way from that small south London lock-up back in 1963. But Bruce wouldn’t wish for us to merely look backwards without looking forwards, too.
Accordingly, echoes of our past will reverberate throughout a series of unique events and celebrations to be held across our anniversary year.
From the McLaren 50 logos we’ll proudly sport on our team shirts, through our specially commissioned heritage video features, to the launch of our new MP4-28 Formula 1 car with Jenson Button and Sergio Perez on January 31st, every lap, every corner, every mile and every road we take will be an opportunity to revel in McLaren’s present while recalling our 50- year past.
Ron Dennis CBE, executive chairman, McLaren Group and McLaren Automotive, said: “McLaren’s history is long and storied, but McLaren’s legacy is harder to define – and that’s because it’s still being vividly written every day by the dedicated men and women who work at the McLaren Technology Centre.
“Bruce McLaren wrote the beginning of the story, and the legend is going to continue for many years to come. I’m only a chapter, not the book, and I want other people to come in and write their own chapters as time goes by.
“This is a book that’s still being written, and that, perhaps, is the greatest legacy of McLaren.”
Please join us via www.mclaren.com to share the path of this journey. It’ll be fun and it’ll be fast.
Somewhere up there, we hope Bruce is smiling down on us, still gunning that throttle…
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Notes to Editors:
A selection of high resolution images accompanying this release is available to download from the McLaren Automotive media site - http://www.media.mclarenautomotive.com.
Image caption: Progress made real – a McLaren M7C, one of our iconic papaya orange- liveried grand prix cars from 1969, sits alongside the 12C Spider, our latest world-beating high- performance sports car.
About McLaren Automotive:
McLaren Automotive is a British manufacturer of luxury, high-performance sports cars, located at the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) in Woking, Surrey.
Following the company’s global launch in 2010, McLaren Automotive launched the groundbreaking 12C and 12C Spider and, in keeping with its plan to introduce a new model each year, recently unveiled the McLaren P1 at the Paris Motor Show. The brand continues to expand, operating through a dedicated global network of retailers in every major automotive market.
McLaren Automotive Technical Partners In the development, engineering and manufacture of its range of innovative and highly acclaimed sports cars, McLaren Automotive has partnered with world leading companies to provide specialist expertise and technology. These include Akebono, AkzoNobel, ExxonMobil and Pirelli.
Designed for the track; Developed for the road
The connection between Formula 1 and road cars at McLaren is a natural process of experience, knowledge, principles and process transfer. Through the integration of 50 years of Formula 1 racing expertise and knowledge, and 20 years of heritage in producing landmark sports cars, McLaren Automotive designs, develops and builds the technologically advanced, groundbreaking and no compromise 12C and 12C Spider.
McLaren has pioneered the use of carbon fibre in vehicle production over the past 30 years, and since introducing a carbon chassis into racing and road cars with the 1981 McLaren MP4/1 and 1993 McLaren F1 respectively, McLaren has not built a car without a carbon fibre chassis.
Visit www.mclarenautomotive.com for more details.
Further information
Wayne Bruce Head of Communications and Public Relations | McLaren Automotive Limited Phone: +44 (0) 1483 261500 Mobile: +44 (0) 7768 132429 Email: [email protected]
Steve Cooper PR Officer | Vodafone McLaren Mercedes [email protected]
Lena Siep Global PR Manager | McLaren Automotive Limited Phone: +44 (0) 1483 262038 Mobile: +44 (0) 7826 91005 Email: [email protected]
Dave Eden Press Officer | McLaren Automotive Limited Phone: +44 (0) 1483 262867 Mobile: +44 (0) 7500 857089 Email: [email protected] Twitter: www.twitter.com/DaveEden
Media website: www.media.mclarenautomotive.com Facebook:www.facebook.com/mclarenautomotive Twitter:www.twitter.com/McLarenAuto You Tube:www.youtube.com/mclarenautomotivetv
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