Bruce McLaren’s arrival in Europe, in his own, rediscovered words

With back-to-back Formula 1 Constructors’ World Championship titles for 2024-25 under its belt this has certainly been – regardless of a hiccupping Drivers’ campaign – a great period for the McLaren marque. For me extra flavour was provided some weeks ago when my former-F1 TV tech friend Gary Critcher sent me an audio copy of tapes recorded by Bruce McLaren himself during his earliest seasons driving for Cooper in Europe, 1958-59.

Bruce had earned his European foray as winner of the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association’s inaugural ‘Driver to Europe’ scholarship. He and his friend Colin Beanland began the trip in March 1958, first flying to Sydney, Australia, then meeting the P&O liner Orontes in Melbourne, since it was carrying the Cooper-Climax, which Bruce intended to race in England and Europe.

However, in Australia, Bruce was advised that the NZIGPA had entered him for the Aintree ‘200’ meeting in Liverpool on April 19. Jack Brabham, a McLaren family friend and supporter had arranged £60 starting money for him there. He would have to leave the liner and fly to make the race in time, which he did. By the time Beanland and Bruce’s own Cooper arrived, feisty old Charlie Cooper had insisted that McLaren insure the new latest-spec car he’d had to build in the Surbiton factory, which instantly “…took care of 50 quid”.

The two young Kiwis settled initially in the Royal Oak pub, just around the corner from Cooper’s works in Surbiton, Surrey. The boys found England strange after their New Zealand upbringing. Bruce effectively ran as part of Cooper’s 1958 Formula 2 team, alongside the experienced – and immensely worldly-wise rascal Ian Burgess. In one of his tapes to the family back home Bruce reported: “Here, everyone is on the fiddle – especially in the motor racing world. You know it’s said ‘You have to get up early in the morning’ to get ahead of them – Ian (Burgess)tells us that here ‘You can’t even go to bed’.

He also commented upon “What a range of foreign languages here – especially up (near Snetterton) at Norwich” – going on to explain that he and Colin couldn’t make head nor tail out of the broad-Norfolk dialect, but then adding: “I’m looking forward to going to Scotland…seeing David Murray” – of Ecurie Ecosse – “…and telling him my name – I might get a drive!”.

He obviously had a privileged introduction to the British and European racing world with Jack Brabham as his mentor, but he also liked – and rated – American Ecosse then Cooper F1 driver Masten Gregory, despite some of his habits: “Like all Americans he cuts or mashes-up his food with a fork before tucking in. Solveig Burgess (Ian’s wife) asked him why he was mashing his roast potatoes with a fork? He said ‘Why? D’you eat them whole’?”

Masten also regaled them with his account of his famous crash at Silverstone when the brakes failed in his Ecosse Lister-Jaguar. He made the decision to draw up his legs and crouch in the seat as the Lister careered into the barrier, and while the wreck rebounded trackside he was thrown over the bank to the spectator side, only to find himself “besieged by schoolboys wanting his autograph”.

“The thief realised he couldn’t get away and said, ‘Please forgive me’”

But the most spectacular of the taped stories concerns the evening of the Tribute to Fangio movie premiere in London in 1959. Bruce described it as having been “Very impressive – I met Fangio, he looks very much younger than he really is” but then continued: “On the way back I followed Jack Brabham to Surbiton, picking up friend Phil Kerr (visiting from NZ) on the way to put Jack’s F2 car on the trailer for Monaco. We were working away (in Jack’s workshop) when we heard a Morris Minor start up and drive away outside”. It was Bruce and Phil’s intended conveyance to Monaco next morning. Bruce admits that he and Phil just stood there, stunned, while streetwise Jack reacted instantly, shouting at them to cram into his Holden tow car because knowing the Surbiton street plan he was confident he could cut-off the Minor: “He shouted ‘We can go this other way’ and sure enough here came our Minor ‘549 DPJ’…the driver abandoned it and ran for it – leaving the Minor in gear with its engine still running”. Phil took care of it while Bruce gained on the thief before being overtaken by a bystander who had seen the schemozzle and joined the pursuit. “He was a veritable Herb Elliott – the thief realised he couldn’t get away and he suddenly just gave up and said ‘Please forgive me’. He was only a kid, about 17. We thought about it, and let him go. Next morning, 6-o’clock, we were up and away to Lydd for the Le Touquet Silver City Airways flight, then the drive to Monaco, via Reims where I wanted to show Phil the circuit there.”

Reims ’58 had been young Bruce’s first sight of a World Championship Grand Prix race. He’d had to step back from the road edge before the pits as Jean Behra, Harry Schell and – yes – Fangio had come storming past at 170mph-plus on the main straight barely wide enough for two abreast, never mind three. And that evening in a local restaurant he’d see first hand as race winner Mike Hawthorn and Ferrari team-mate Peter Collins celebrated – by just trashing the place. Those tapes are in so many ways a reminder of top-class motor sport, in so many respects the politically incorrect way it used to be…