Background and Development
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was founded in 1964; Bruce McLaren was a factory driver for the Cooper motor racing team which competed in Formula One, the highest level of international single-seater competition. For two years the McLaren team had raced in the Tasman Series, a competition for single-seaters that ran during the Formula One world championship off-season, and in various sports car races. Bruce McLaren continued to race in Grands Prix (i.e. Formula One championship races) for Cooper, but by 1965 the team's performances were worsening and so he decided to build his own Formula One car to race the following year. Despite being a skilled engineer himself, McLaren enlisted Robin Herd to design the car. Herd was an aerospace engineer who had previously worked at the National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) where he had been involved with the Concorde project. In September 1965 the M2A development car was completed. Powered by a 4.5 litre Oldsmobile V8 engine, it was used to test Herd's design ideas and Firestone's tyres. With McLaren still employed by Cooper, the McLaren team initially denied that they were building a Formula One competitor, claiming that the M2A was purely a tyre test bed.
At the factory in Colnbrook, construction started on at least two M2B chassis, whilst a third was possibly started but not completed. By December 1965 the M2A had completed over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of testing and two race engines were ready to be installed in the M2B, Bruce McLaren testing the car at Goodwood Circuit. Also that month, the design team was joined by Herd's former NGTE colleague Gordon Coppuck; Coppuck later became chief designer at McLaren. In February 1966 further testing was carried out in California, United States in anticipation of the start of the world championship season in May.
Read more about this topic: Mc Laren M2B
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