Bruce McLaren's M6GT restored: The first McLaren road car is back
Wednesday, 8 July 2026
The first road car conceived by New Zealand motorsport legend Bruce McLaren has been brought back to life by company bearing his name.
McLaren Special Operations (MSO) has unveiling a in-house restoration of the McLaren M6GT ahead of its public debut at this week's Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.
The M6GT occupies a unique place in McLaren history as the company's first road car project. While McLaren is best known for road cars such as the F1, P1, and today's 750S, Bruce McLaren's ambition to build a road-going supercar dates back to the late 1960s.
Derived directly from the dominant M6A Can-Am racer, the M6GT combined lightweight construction, a mid-mounted Chevrolet small-block V8, butterfly doors, and endurance racing-inspired styling.
The M6A won 29 of the 33 races it contested between 1967 and 1970, leading many to nickname the championship the 'Bruce and Denny Show' after Bruce McLaren and fellow Kiwi driver Denny Hulme.
That success inspired the M6GT, which was intended to homologate McLaren for Group 4 competition at Le Mans.
During development, Bruce McLaren famously used the prototype as his personal transport, driving it to race meetings and business appointments.
However, Bruce McLaren's death in 1970 brought plans for a race and road car to a premature end. Just two M6GTs were completed before the entire project was shelved, though many of the ideas behind the M6GT would eventually resurface 25 years later in the Le Mans-winning McLaren F1.
Rather than building a continuation model, MSO says the one-off restoration faithfully recreates Bruce McLaren's original vision using original body moulds, archive drawings, period photographs, and authentic components.
The project also marks the beginning of McLaren's new Heritage Collection, with the company describing it as both a tribute to its founder and a technical exercise in preserving its earliest road car ambitions.
Unlike many historic recreations, MSO says authenticity was prioritised over modernisation. The restored car uses a period-correct Chevrolet small-block V8 with original-specification 'camel hump' cylinder heads, paired with a matching-era gearbox.
Its chassis comes from a period-built M6A race car verified against McLaren's historical records, while the bodywork was recreated using original moulds discovered in the United Kingdom.
Engineers also uncovered evidence of modifications made during the original development programme, allowing those changes to be incorporated into the finished car.
Many structural components, including the rear frame, roll hoop, internal reinforcements, and wiring harness, were hand-fabricated from scratch.
The suspension uses original M6GT hardware restored with hard-to-source imperial bearings, while aerospace-style aluminium dome rivets replicate the construction techniques used more than half a century ago.
Inside, the race-derived cockpit features bespoke green vinyl upholstery with period-correct heat-seam detailing and a hand-turned walnut gear knob.
The one-off restoration is finished in a bespoke cream-based shade called Colnbrook White, named after the English town where Bruce McLaren developed his road car concept.
Its white-and-green colour scheme also references Bruce McLaren's first Formula 1 car, the 1966 M2B, linking McLaren's earliest racing efforts with what would eventually become one of the world's best-known supercar brands.
'The M6GT: Restored by MSO has been a labour of craft and care for the team and served as both a technical education and a living reminder of Bruce's ambition to take McLaren beyond the racetrack,' said MSO director Jon Simms.
'This car occupies a unique place in our collection – a tribute to the very beginnings of the company and a spiritual education for its future.'
The M6GT will make its public debut at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed alongside McLaren's current road car lineup, highlighting that the company's road car ambitions began decades before the iconic F1.