McLaren preparing to celebrate their 50th anniversary

McLaren has announced the company will celebrate their 50th anniversary on September 2nd, 2013.

Originally launched in 1963 as Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, the company will celebrate the occasion by using a 50th anniversary logo on everything from their shirts to the new MP4-28 Formula 1 that will debut on January 31st. McLaren also intends to host a variety of "unique events and celebrations" throughout the year.

According to McLaren Chairman Ron Dennis, “McLaren’s history is long and storied, but McLaren’s legacy is harder to define – and that’s because it’s still being vividly written every day by the dedicated men and women who work at the McLaren Technology Centre. Bruce McLaren wrote the beginning of the story, and the legend is going to continue for many years to come. I’m only a chapter, not the book, and I want other people to come in and write their own chapters as time goes by."

Over the years, McLaren has made a name for itself with a variety of high-performance models. Their entry into Formula One began in 1966 and they have gone on to win more races (182) than any other constructor. McLaren also employed a number of notable drivers including Alain Prost, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Lewis Hamilton and Ayrton Senna.

In the United States, McLaren dominated the CanAm series by winning five successive championships and 43 different races. The company also built cars that won the Indy 500 in 1974 and 1976.

More recently, McLaren has built supercars such as the F1, Mercedes SLR McLaren and the MP4-12C.

Source: McLaren

highlights from 2013 Dakar

Watch the highlights from 2013 Dakar won by Cyril Despres (KTM-Michelin)

Paolo Simoncelli launches Squadra Corse Sic 58 team

On Saturday evening, for the second consecutive year the Buon Compleanno Sic (happy birthday) event took place to remember the late and still very much missed Marco Simoncelli who would have turned 26 on January 20th.

The event was organized by the Marco Simoncelli Foundation and held at the 105 Stadium in Rimini with all proceeds of the evening going to help the Foundation carry out their charity projects. Almost 5000 people turned up for the event including friends like Mattia Pasini and Valentino Rossi.

The event also was used to present the new “Squadra Corse Sic 58” team that will see two young riders Kevin Sabatucci and Mattia Casadei race in the Italian PreGP championship (for 13 to 16-year olds) on Honda machines with San Carlo as their sponsor and Fausto Gresini supplying the technical support, but more importantly the team will be run by Paolo Simoncelli.

The initial idea of forming a racing team honouring Simoncelli’s name came from his former MotoGP crewchief Aligi Deganello (now with Aprilia in WSBK’s) and Aldo Drudi back in March 2012, who both thought that Paolo Simoncelli could really help in the formation of talented young riders.

from TWOWHEELSBLOG

Tara Browne's 1965 AC 289 Sports by Binder, Edwards & Vaughan

It is all too easy to proclaim a car 'a work of art’. In the case of the 1960s triumvirate of applied artists Douglas Binder and Dudley Edwards, and their manager/agent David Vaughan, pieces such as the ‘Tara Browne AC’ were worthy of exhibition in a London gallery.

Known collectively as ‘BEV’, Binder and Edwards applied psychedelic hand-painting techniques to cars, buildings and furniture. The completed piece of art was a combination of their painting process (the choice of colour and design) applied to an object. Their design, only when juxtaposed on to the unique shape of the subject, became the completed piece.
Working in the mid-1960s, the group was fronted by the extrovert, but not always easy to handle, Vaughan (late father of the actress Sadie Frost) while Binder and Edwards conceived and completed the works.

Edwards was inspired by the artwork of the world of showmen and fun fairs. Together with Binder, he liked to combine sharp edges with smooth gradations: “I feel the effect is somewhat akin to the chords played by Thelonious Monk,” he told Classic Driver.
Having worked on furniture and wall murals, BEV then considered applying the concept to cars, first on a 1960 Buick Electra Convertible. As Edwards recalls, the group “didn’t expect anyone to take the risk of having their cars painted without first seeing an example.”
Cars or furniture, the process was the same: a few coats of gesso sanded down to a “glass-like finish” then the colour (household gloss paint mixed with ‘Flamboyant Enamel’) applied by hand.


Guinness heir The Hon. Tara Browne (who was to introduce Binder and Edwards to The Beatles) commissioned BEV to give his newly acquired AC 289 Sports ‘the treatment’. (This car, a 289, was British-built with a 427-type body and chassis and – for legal reasons – could no longer be called a ‘Cobra’.)
The dazzling AC was exhibited at the Robert Fraser Gallery in Mayfair and became the subject of a photo-shoot by Lord Snowdon there and on Primrose Hill, North London, for both ‘Paris Match’ and the American magazine ‘Look’.
Pathé News described the AC thus: “It isn’t a car at all, it’s a painting. The art world is playing a new game with synthetic and flamboyant enamels, combining 1930s-style décor with pin-table pop art. This is art on wheels.”


Edwards spent some time in the passenger seat of the ferocious AC. “At that time it was probably the closest feeling to a dragster that one could have on our roads. The top speed was not impressive... but the acceleration: WOW.
“You could hear every piston... the engine would be rocking the car from side to side... you were pinned back into your seat like an astronaut experiencing g-force at take-off. It was a very masculine machine, no frilly bits inside – all engine surrounded by bodywork that, compared to most cars, was like tin foil.”
Browne was to achieve worldwide fame after he died, aged 21, at the wheel of his Lotus Elan and was immortalised in the Beatles song ‘A Day in the Life’.
Edwards and Binder went on to paint Paul McCartney’s ‘Magic Piano’ and to create murals on many 1960s shop fronts, including ‘Dandie Fashions’ and ‘Lord John’. Edwards then painted murals in the houses of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
And the AC 289 Sports? Marque expert Trevor Legate tells us that a few years ago the car was still registered in the UK and is now painted... wait for it... metallic burgundy.

Related Links The website of Dudley and Madeleine Edwards, without whom this article could never have been completed: www.amazedltd.com Dudley Edwards interviewed by 'Groove Grove Graphics': Part I, Part II, Part III Paul McCartney playing the 'Magic Piano' on his 2011 world tour AC Cobras in the Classic Driver Marketplace Trevor Legate's excellent book 'Cobra: The First 40 Years' can be bought fromwww.amazon.com Rod Leach's Nostalgia cars for sale in the Classic Driver Marketplace

Text: Steve Wakefield (ClassicDriver)
Photos: by Martin Cook, courtesy of Dudley Edwards - Strictly Copyright