McLaren race car replica.

[jansens]

This has been discussed before but for those who don't remember my friends Joss, Richard and Ian (who posts here of course) were involved with building a replica (in a VERY short time) of Bruce McLaren's Austin 7 race car for the film recently made.

That body has ended up in Southwards car museum just north of Wellington so I went up to see it last weekend. They put it onto a chassis to display it. I think it has a big 7 front end on it but something looks really wrong. It's like they bent the axle in the middle so the wheels have the wrong camber!

I am sure Ian can fill in more details about the story of it.









Simon

[Erich]

I'm a bit confused on the original car. The plaque says it was a Special based on a 1929 Ulster. Of course, "Ulster" was just a nickname, and the cars were really known as EA Sports or EA Super Sports? if blown. But those cars didn't come out until 1930, or am I mistaken?

Erich in Seattle

[Ian Williams]

There is a lot of miss information and false folk law about the car Jim McLaren built for Bruce when he was a kid, in fact Jim was building to for himself by all accounts, and Bruce ended up taking it over. The Body was based on the remains of an Ulster/EA Sport what ever you wish to call it, Jim Used the floorpan, firewall and bonnet on his special, I am not 100% sure if the chassis was also ulster but suspect so, certainly in its early form it had a std bowed sports axle and radius arms together with raked column and flat springs. Bruce subsequently fitted a big seven front end. The engine was a touring item which was progressively tuned and always had an ulster exhaust manifold, the G/box may have been CR but we can only surmise. The body had a J2 scuttle, a tube frame was attached to the floor with single curvature aluminium skin, it was rough and ready quite unlike the over restored car we see today in Mclarens collection, which by the way has been rebuilt at least twice in order to achieve the standards required by the great corporation Mclaren now is! Sad really in my book, especially as I know that a lot of the original car was discarded in order to make the facsimile, oh well can't have the truth get in the way of a legend! Our version was a mercy build constructed in two weeks by the thee of us so that the film makers had a running car that at least looked right for the camera. in order to get the thing built in such a short time frame we canalised mechanicals from Richard McWhannells Dieppe and my special both of which were fortunately apart for rebuilds at the time. Obviously after filming we wanted our cars back together so the now redundant body was sold to Southwards who built up a running chassis for it, they did not get the ride height quite right but only the purists will really notice such things. I posted a few of the build pictures on another thread here, someone can probably find a link, and if anyone wants to know more I have a heap of others I could bore you with. It is about time someone built an accurate replica of this car, I can help if any Kiwi wants to undertake such an exercise, Joss and I have set up fortnightly panel beating classes where the guys are learning to construct accurate EA replica body work, one of the floorpans we build could form the basis of a fabulous and authentic copy, I can get you a J2 scuttle and have pictures of the original car under construction.

[Erich]

Thank you, Ian. I suspect that the car that Jim built was probably less refined than the "over restored" one in the McLaren shop. A pity, I because a less refined car would, I think, better reflect what Bruce was able to achieve. Indeed, one of the things that has always impressed me, is how many drivers, both prewar and immediately postwar, were able to achieve outstanding results with fairly unsophisticated machinery. I applaud them all.

Erich in Seattle

[Ian Williams]

Exactly Erich