…and McLaren memories

Your feature on MVC 575 reminded me of the TR2 that I once owned, which Bruce McLaren raced in New Zealand.

I had sold my MG TD and was advertising for a ’Healey or TR2 when I received a call from a Dr McCloskey, close to my parents’ home in Auckland, who said he had a TR2 for sale. He told me he had bought it specifically for Bruce to modify as he wanted and to race.

Bruce took the car to the mechanics at Air New Zealand to do the mods, which included work on the chassis and suspension, with the result that it cornered like a Lotus Elan. The mechanics also skimmed the cylinder head, installed stronger valve springs, polished the internals and fitted a finned aluminium high-capacity sump (later, I scraped the bottom of this occasionally). They also installed some sort of water injection into each cylinder: the car ran on half regular and half synthetic fuel, which was available in drums at only one service station in Auckland. There were other modifications that I cannot remember.

Bruce raced the car in New Zealand and even took seventh place in the New Zealand Grand Prix, which was not restricted to racing cars. He competed in it until he left New Zealand to race over in England, and set a New Zealand Land Speed Record (on the 90-mile beach) in excess of 140mph.

One time I was in the TR2 on the motorway when an American car – a Thunderbird, I think – passed me. The driver was obviously looking to race and he topped out at about 105mph. I pulled alongside and changed down (much to his surprise) and left him far behind. I often had the TR2 above 130mph – on retreaded tyres, because I could not afford new ones.

The TR2 was British Racing Green with tan interior. Its only fault was that at high speed it regularly sucked birds into the grille. Sixty years later, I still miss this car and remember it better than its successors, which included a Lotus Elan and Mercedes 280SL. Russell J Eddy Bermuda