George Turner McLaren M1A

[ddyke]

MK1a could not race at Lemans as it was a group 7 car. In England they had to have the tire but in the US they did not.

[chappyman66]

In the olden days, racing was gran prix (single seaters) and sports cars (two seaters, from the 50s forward). In the early 60s organizing/sanctioning bodies were trying to preserve the "fiction" of arrive and drive sports cars with the influx of purpose built racing cars. So sports cars had to have certain characteristic such as two seats. Of course, the ACO for LeMans had the spare tire and infamous "luggage compartment" requirements.

Remember Penske/McLaren and the Zerex Special? That was a grand prix car (single seater) with fenders (a new body) and a "partial" second seat. So the spare tire on the M1A was mounted up front because that's the space that was available when McLaren built the car in order to meet the rules of the time. It's unique, that's for sure.

[SRQSloter]

[tedm]

The sports/gt rules at the time included the carrying of a spare wheel.The Ford GT40 ,Ferrari P4 and cars like that carried a spare.I think some classes even insisted on the cars having luggage space. I think this requirement was dropped around 1968ish.Obviously,there is more to the story than my brief explanation but you get the idea. I like the idea of shopping in a Ferrari P4,though....
TED.....

[TsgtRet]

I remember a documentary on the Ford GT at LeMans and showed them going through scrutineering: not only was there a spare but a jack and tire tools.....the check for luggage space was a wooden box "standard size suitcase".......in the Ford GT it was placed on top of the exhaust at the tail and it cleared......just!

[Dangermouse]

what fun I have on this forum - so I just discovered the Xerex special was a Cooper T53 rebuilt with fenders to use in sports car racing

[Harry Slotter]

I'm thinking of building a Xerox Special... it'll be the fastest copier on the track.

Not sure yet what paper size we'll be running at Le Mans.

[chappy]

The Cooper King Cobra was the same story, it was an F1 car and had body work added to make it a sports car and the 2nd seat. It also had a much bigger engine put in it.
Some of the drivers said the addition of the V8 caused the car to be almost undriveable.
But it had limited success.
A good read about its short history.
Bob

[chappyman66]

With a Xerox special, you have to run A4 in Europe but 8.5x11 in the US. Interesting suspension geometry.... :lol:

Mentioning the King Cobra - McLaren took the Xerex Special and stuffed a Buick V8 in the back, with super tall diagonal pipes so you sometimes see it modeled with those reaching for the sky. It's next iteration (I think) was with Penske, who didn't use the V8 and modified the rear fenders (among other things) to have tail fins for aero purposes and called it the Telar Special. So one car went from being a crashed F1 car through (I believe) three modeled iterations of sports car....and it's sort of all the same car.

And yes......the King Cobra was a heavily modified Cooper. So you start to see how tracing the racing history of a car for vintage events can become a bit confusing unless it's a clearly pedigreed winner that was in a museum somewhere.

[Florida_Slotter]

[DAVE]

The McLaren M1 was actually built for the USRRC series, which required the car to have full road going
equipment. My Genie also has a place for the spare, but I never raced with the spare on board. The
first Mclarens were actually built by Elva, and were often referred to as McLaren-Elvas. The car was
essentially an Elva Mk-8 modified to Bruce's direction. The "Big Banger Mk-8s" had the tire in that position
as there literally was no room anywhere else to put it.

[gascarnut]

[SRQSloter]

First time trying these. Should work well. Need to round up some insert wheels. Then make some time to work on it.

[dreinecke]

Awesome looking chassis work! I love George's kits and this one was no exception. VERY easy build.

I built one of these about two years ago:

[munter]

Beautiful grid there, David.

Is number four a 1B ?

Regards