His father bought him an Austin 7 for his 16th birthday in 1953 and he began competing while he was still studying engineering. In 1957 he had progressed to Cooper-Climax machinery in both sportscar and single-seater racing. The following year he was sent to Europe by the local sporting authority, the first of its Driver to Europe candidates and he raced inFormula 2 with some success. This led to the offer of the offer of a factory F1 drive in 1959 alongside Jack Brabham. Brabham won the title but McLaren ended the year with a victory in the inaugural United States GrandPrix at Sebring. He started the 1960 season in similar style winning in Argentina but thereafter Brabham returned to his winning ways. With the change of F1 rules in 1961 the team was no longer competitive and when Brabham went off to start his own team in 1962 McLaren became the team leader. But by then Lotus and BRM were the teams to beat and McLaren won only the 1962 Monaco GP. He stayed with Cooper, without another win, until the end of 1965. During the winter of 1964-65, however, he established Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd and built up a pair of modified Cooper chassis for himself and Tim Mayer. Unfortunately Mayer was killed in an accident at Longford in Tasmania but McLaren kept the team going and later won the New Zealand GP and the Tasman title.
His next step was to buy a Zerex sportscar with which Roger Penske had enjoyed some success in the US and the car was reworked and fitted withan Oldsmobile engine and began racing this in America in 1965, while also racing for Cooper in F1. That year Firestone asked McLaren to help the company develop new tyres and so he built a single-seater racer with which to do the testing.
He was then hired by Ford to race the GT40 sportscars and in 1966 he won the Le Mans 24 Hours. That same year he built his first proper F1 chassis, designed by Robin Herd and fitted with a Ford engine. The engine was not a success and in the midseason McLaren tried out the SerenissimaV8.
In 1967 the F1 team continued to struggled with BRM engines but the company's CanAm sportscars completely dominated the US series, beginning a run of success in CanAm which continued for the next four years.
McLaren continued with F1 and also branched out into USAC racing and even into F2 but without much success. In 1968, however, the team used Cosworth DFV engines and with Denny Hulme backing up McLaren the team began winning, McLaren won in Belgium and Hulme followed up with wins in Italy and Canada. In 1969 Hulme added a victory in Mexico while McLaren's reliability gave him third place in the World Championship. The campaign continued in 1970 but in June, while testing a Can Am car at Goodwood, McLaren crashed when something on the car broke and he was killed.
The company continued without its founder and remains one of the great names of F1 racing.
