Motorsport legend Bruce McLaren’s grave suffers further damage at Auckland’s Waikumete Cemetery

The graves of Kiwi motorsport legend Bruce McLaren and his wife, Patricia, have been vandalised again in a series of disturbing incidents at a West Auckland graveyard.

The grave site in Glen Eden’s Waikumete Cemetery contains memorials to McLaren, who died in a crash in 1970, and his wife, who died in 2016, and to his parents, sister and brother-in-law.

Damage was discovered in late September when gold paint was smeared over them, while a toy car was glued on another, along with bleach damage.

The incidents left the Bruce McLaren Trust “lost for words” and it was thankful to the Grave Guardians, a voluntary organisation that restores headstones that offered to help.

Other graves in the vicinity were also targeted.

Police confirmed they had received a report of damage to several headstones at the cemetery.

Inquiries into the incident were continuing, a spokesperson said.

Protective wrapping was placed over the headstones while restorations took place, but on December 6, further damage was discovered and left the Grave Guardians fuming.

Photos show polyester sheets over the graves, with massive rips in the centre and chips in the gold writing on the tombstones, which appear to have been covered in bleach again.

In a Facebook post, Grave Guardians said it was taking the continual damage “personally” and urged whoever was doing it to stop.

They described the vandalism as “deliberate and calculated”.

“The McLaren cluster of headstones just seem to be a magnet,” the Facebook post says.

“We have repeatedly arrived to continue work to find the wrapping lifted off and further attempts made on the stones. This hampers efforts to finish the work because we spend an hour or two having to fix the mess that undoes everything we had done.

“It’s no longer being considered a well-meaning but uneducated attempt, this is deliberate and calculated.”

An updated version of the post says someone did witness the latest attacks and information has been passed on to police.

The Herald has contacted the Grave Guardians and the Bruce McLaren Trust for further comment.

McLaren was one of New Zealand’s biggest names in motorsport, having won four grand prix between 1958 and 1970.

He started the McLaren Formula One team in 1963.