McLaren M6 GT 1968

Early on in McLaren’s history, company founder and racing driver Bruce McLaren set out to capitalise on the team’s success in the Can-Am series by building a racing car for the road.  The McLaren M6 GT was Bruce’s pet project and he developed the car in-house at his Colnbrook factory near London during 1968/9.  Only one prototype was made based on the dominant 1967 McLaren M6 chassis – a full monocoque tub made of aluminium alloy sheet over steel bulkheads.  The engine was a 5.7 litre Ford unit producing around 370bhp and the chassis was clothed in an attractive coupé body made of reinforced polyester resin.  The M6 GT’s dry weight of 725 kilos testifies that it really was a racing car for the road, rather than a civilised supercar.
Bruce’s underlying idea was to make a road car that could be easily modified to compete in the 1969 Group 4 sports car category – a car to compete with Ferrari, Porsche and Alfa Romeo – as well as to offer the fastest, quickest accelerating and best handling road car on the market.  Bruce’s prototype was good for over 165mph with a 0-100mph acceleration time of eight seconds.
When the FIA changed the homologation rules to require a minimum of 50 units to qualify for the race series it became too much of a commercial challenge for the young company, and Bruce’s tragic death at Goodwood in June 1970 effectively terminated the project. Trojan (McLaren’s partner for production of customer race cars) however, did build three M6GTs for customers.  It would be almost 20 years before the McLaren company would dream of producing another road car....but it would be worth the wait.

Wallpapers : McLaren M6 GT 1968