A daughter’s quest to showcase her father’s incredible legacy: ‘It’s a story for young people that if you have a dream, believe it, go for it. Don’t give up. It is possible.’
Amanda McLaren carefully sifts through black-and-white photographs on her laptop. She has no direct memories of her legendary father Bruce – she was only 4 when he was killed during race-car testing in Britain in 1970.
But these remarkable images from another time – Amanda with him on a living-room chair; the pair of them in a park; him pushing her on a swing – are a precious, heartbreaking reminder of his legacy, and what she lost as a little girl.
Those photos and, of course, the pair of super-hot orange Formula 1 cars that hurtle around race tracks, hitting speeds of more than 370km/h and bearing the McLaren badge.
The very name is the epitome of motorsport supremacy. The McLaren team is leading the F1 constructors’ championship – a shoo-in to retain the title it won last year – and its two drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, are battling it out in a runaway duel to be world champion.
“Not a lot of New Zealanders know that it was a young man from Remuera who founded ... the team that has the orange cars out there every Sunday, or every second Sunday,” says Amanda, Bruce’s only child, in her Bay of Plenty living room.
“I love seeing the name on the cars, and more importantly, I just think my father would be so proud that his name lives on.
“There are so many Formula 1 teams that were on the grid in the 60s – when he established Bruce McLaren Motor Racing – that have either ceased to exist or, after being bought out, have had a complete name change.
“Dad’s name is still on the cars, whether they be race cars or road cars now. I’m just so proud that his legacy and what he started are still with us today.”
She is an avid McLaren fan, having worked for the company for years as a full-time brand ambassador. She still has a close connection, as an honorary ambassador, with occasional visits to the McLaren factory and Grand Prix races.
She is also a trustee for the Bruce McLaren Trust, a charitable organisation established to inspire other Kiwi drivers and engineers, and to maintain McLaren’s incredible legacy.
Bruce McLaren was only 32 when he was killed at the Goodwood Circuit in Sussex in June 1970.
Amanda McLaren remembers being taken to the home of family friends that day and being given a doll set.
“Mum and dad were supposed to be going to dinner with them, and of course, that didn’t happen, but I still went.
“I remember the doll’s set and thinking, ‘I wonder why I’m being given this, because it’s not my birthday and it’s not Christmas’. I was not aware or told what had happened.”
She ponders whether she was subconsciously aware as the days and weeks went on. Eighteen months later, she says, she was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic, an autoimmune condition.
It was, she says, “perhaps exacerbated by the stress that I wasn’t aware of, but was obviously very palpable in the house”.
“My mother [Patty] was pregnant with a second child. She not only lost my father, but she lost the baby, and so it must have been a very, very difficult time for her and for me, but I didn’t realise it.
“I think I was probably very fortunate in that respect – that I wasn’t maybe 10 years older, and really had to deal with my grief in that sense.
“It was a gradual realisation, over the years, that daddy wasn’t coming home.”
Amanda and her husband Stephen, who is also a trustee for the Bruce McLaren Trust, are back living in New Zealand.
Amanda was born in London and grew up in Walton on Thames, Surrey. She and her parents lived in a house called Muriwai, named after the beach where her father won his first race.
She later spent many years of her adult life in New Zealand before she and Stephen returned in 2014 to Britain to be McLaren brand ambassadors. They’ve been back in New Zealand since 2021.
Amanda is a massive horse fan. After today’s interview, she’s off to feed her horse in a nearby field. “One horsepower is actually my passion and hobby.”
Actually, she says, she loves anything with four wheels - specifically if it has a McLaren badge - and four legs.
She records the overnight Sunday F1 races, watching them with Stephen first thing on a Monday morning – while ignoring her phone and spoiler alerts. She knows that if she receives a lot of messages, it invariably means the team has done well.
One of the Bruce McLaren Trust’s big projects is helping turn the legendary driver and engineer’s original garage on Remuera Rd into a public-facing Bruce McLaren showcase.
Leading businessman Nigel McKenna, a “passionate F1 fan and a huge admirer of Bruce”, bought the building through his property development and investment company Templeton in 2021.
He approached Amanda McLaren with the idea of working together – a variety of design concepts are now being worked through.
One thing is certain: It won’t be a museum. The parties are determined to ensure it is “viable and relevant” and are “undertaking extensive global research in this regard”.
According to Heritage New Zealand, the building – built in 1926 and listed as a category 1 historic place – is an early example of a suburban service station and garage, “one of many specialised roadside facilities designed to serve the rapidly increasing number of private motorcars as cars became more affordable”.
Bruce McLaren’s father, Les – whose own love of motorsport inspired his son – bought the business in 1936 and then the building itself, in partnership with Bruce, in 1959.
By that time, Bruce McLaren was already on his way to international acclaim, having won the New Zealand International Grand Prix-sponsored “Driver to Europe” award.
It was to be the passport and gateway to his future global success – as well as establishing a racing team, he would end up with four Grand Prix victories and 27 podiums in his career.
Les McLaren sold the business in 1968, but the McLarens retained ownership of the premises until McLaren’s death in 1970.
The trust has an extraordinary collection of McLaren memorabilia, currently in storage with the University of Auckland, including trophies and clothing that Amanda has bequeathed.
“The plan is to really tell an inspirational story,” says Amanda.
“Dad’s story, yes, is all about motor racing. But if you’re not interested in motor racing, there is a story of a young boy who, at the age of 9, was diagnosed with Perthes disease [a rare childhood hip-blood condition].
“During that time, he was told he may never walk again. But rather than giving up, he battled. He did walk again, albeit with a limp.
“In New Zealand at that point, you were very cut off from the rest of the world. He was fortunate to be awarded the Driver to Europe scholarship.
“He went over there, became the youngest driver ever to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix, [at the age of 22 – a record he held for 44 years], and went on to found what is now the second most successful Formula 1 team in the history of the sport.
“It’s a story for young people that if you have a dream, believe it, go for it. Don’t give up. It is possible.
“That’s the sort of story we want to tell, albeit with motor racing as the backdrop.”
As part of its work, the trust offers scholarships to young Kiwi drivers and engineers to spend time at McLaren - inspiring a new generation to follow in the slipstream of one of our greatest New Zealanders.
One of the Bruce McLaren Trust’s patrons is Zak Brown, the chief executive of McLaren Racing, and among the many characters who feature in the Netflix F1 series Drive to Survive, the fly-on-the-wall docu-series credited for a new wave of global F1 fans.
Amanda McLaren has little doubt that Brown himself has been a critical figure in the revival of McLaren, returning it to the top of the F1 podium with an inclusive leadership style, while reinforcing her father’s legacy and principles within the team.
At the McLaren factory and on its website, there are inspirational quotes from its founder.
“Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.”
She has met Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and has no doubt her father would have approved of them.
“I think he would be patting them on the shoulder,” Amanda told mclaren.com recently. “I think he’d love them because of their genuineness. Obviously, he would love what they’re doing, but they are nice people.
“Everybody who talks about my father says he was a lovely man, and I think, in that sense, Lando and Oscar would remind people of my dad, and I think that my dad would give them a good pat on the shoulder for that reason. They’re both young, but they’re both very mature, and everybody loves them.”
I ask her a cheeky question about who she’s backing to win the drivers’ championship: Lando or Oscar.
“I really don’t mind. I just want to see one of them do it. It’s going to be fantastic, but it’s going to be bittersweet for the one that comes second ... [but] as long as one of them does it.”
We get to see the latest instalment of the battle this weekend – F1 racing resumes with the Dutch Grand Prix after a four-week northern hemisphere summer break.
Piastri (284 points) leads Norris (275 points) by a slim margin, with current world champion Max Verstappen a fair way back on 187 points. Barring a major mishap, McLaren has the constructors’ championship all sewn up – it’s on 559 points, more than double that of second-placed Ferrari (260 points).
As she works through the photographs on her laptop, Amanda’s face regularly breaks into a broad smile. Her father – as well as being a legendary race-car driver, engineer and team owner and leader – also found time to be dad.
“Those pictures are treasured. I just don’t have the actual memories, unfortunately.”
Editor-at-large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including managing editor, NZ Herald editor and Herald on Sunday editor.