Bruce McLaren

always imagined that he might one day drive a road car with his name on the nose but I doubt that he would have expected to have his name retained on the nose of all the race cars since his death at Goodwood in 1970 and a growing number of McLaren GT road cars.

The first road car was a thinly modified version of one of the 1960s two-seater CanAm racers that deserved its McLaren name. The newest was the 12C Spider I tried for size in the prestige Archibald showrooms in Christchurch a few weeks ago but it really gave me the feeling that it should have been called a Dennis.