24 Hours of Le Mans Museum, France
Until July 7, 2025
With the exhibition “McLaren, A Name For Eternity”, the 24 Hours of Le Mans Museum invites visitors to discover the legendary story of McLaren, which will celebrate in 2025 the 30th anniversary of its victory in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. Although McLaren is best known (especially to the younger generation) for its Formula 1 cars driven by numerous motorsport stars (Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, or of course the Alain Prost/Ayrton Senna duo), McLaren has undeniably left its mark on the history of motoring and racing at the highest level.
In 2024, McLaren won the F1 Constructors’ World Championship 26 years after the previous title. This 9th title places McLaren as the second most successful manufacturer in F1. From the first car designed by Bruce McLaren to the latest GT3, though the team’s first Formula 1 car, the exhibition retraces the milestones of an exceptional human and technological adventure!
Chronologically, the exhibition begins with… a Ford GT40. Indeed, before becoming a manufacturer, Bruce McLaren was a brilliant racing driver, who won the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Ford GT40. The model on display is identical to the one he drove in the 1964 24 Hours. The exhibition explores 3 areas of motor racing in which the Woking-based company won.
The McLaren M1A Elva is the first sports car designed by McLaren. It was a two-seater “Group 7” racer, produced by the small manufacturer Elva between 1963 and 1968 for private drivers. It was used for racing in North America and Europe. As early as 1966, Bruce McLaren became a manufacturer himself, building “barquettes” for the American CanAm championship, which McLaren dominated from 1967 to 1971, notably with the Chevrolet V8-powered McLaren M8. The M8F on display was the latest in this line.
It was also in 1966 that Bruce McLaren designed and drove his first Formula 1 car, the M2B. He is one of the very few drivers to have won a Formula 1 Grand Prix in a car of his own design (Belgian GP 1968). Bruce McLaren was killed in private testing at the wheel of an M8D, but the team continued under his name and returned to the top of F1. 3 models illustrate this constant participation since 1966, with a 1970 M14A (the last driven by Bruce himself), a 1979 M28 (Monaco GP, John Watson) and the 2021 MCL35M (Monaco GP, Lando Norris).
Building on the success of the M6A in CanAm racing, Bruce McLaren decided to develop the M6GT for Grand Touring, which would have to be produced in small series. Bruce was driving the M6GT prototype for his travels, but his death stopped the development. In a way, the M6GT is the ancestor of the F1 GTR, and later of today’s McLaren road cars. Despite its name, the McLaren F1 presented in 1992 was not a Grand Prix single-seater, but a GT. Powered by a 6-liter BMW V12, the F1 offers 3 front seats, with the driver in the middle of the cockpit.
McLaren developed the F1-GTR for endurance racing, which wins the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours. We’re at Le Mans, so the exhibition highlights the F1-GTR, with several cars that took part in the race, including the winning car driven by Yannick Dalmas, J.J. Lehto and Masanori Sekiya. Another famous F1-GTR is on display, the Art-Car whose livery was designed by French sculptor Cesar Baldaccini, and which finished 13th in the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The GT racing aspect is completed by a McLaren 720S GT3X, an evolution of the 720S GT3, not homologated for competition but equipped with a passenger seat for (very) high-speed track baptisms. McLaren returned to the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2024 in the GT3 category.
The story goes on, so that the McLaren name remains eternal on circuits the world over!
Access to “McLaren, A Name For Eternity” exhibition is included in museum entry ticket
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