The Bruce McLaren Trust
The Bruce McLaren Trust was publicly launched at Wings & Wheels, Whenuapai, Auckland in March 1997. 
In July 1990 a small memorial trust had been formed to honour Bruce. Upon its closure in 1995, it was realised by the McLaren family and Ross Jensen that there was a need to form a permanent trust. Therefore in response to repeated demands to commemorate Bruce McLaren’s achievements and honour him as one of New Zealand’s international heroes, the new Trust was formed by Ross Jensen and Bruce’s younger sister Jan McLaren. The overall purpose of the Bruce McLaren Trust is to be a living working memorial to Bruce McLaren and the McLaren Team heritage. Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1937 and was killed tragically whilst testing one of his cars at Goodwood circuit, England in June 1970. From the young school boy with Perthes Disease, strapped to a metal frame at the Wilson Home in Takapuna, Auckland, to a world class international motor racing driver, engineer and designer whose name is still used in Formula 1 motor racing today, is a remarkable achievement. With fellow New Zealanders, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon, Bruce took on the might of the international motor racing world and triumphed with enormous success. It was all about team work and there is no doubt that Bruce and his team did for New Zealand and New Zealand motorsport in the 1960s and 1970s what Sir Peter Blake and Team Black Magic have done for New Zealand and New Zealand yachting today.
News/Events
We welcomed the Mustang group today to the Heritage Centre. 16 cars representing many decades of the Pony car. Thanks so much for your great feed back. A pleasure to meet you all and talk about Bruce and motorsport, and yes Bruce drove for Ford and won for Ford.
Awesome! ...and who's testing, racing and development went into the original 'Pony? Yep... you guessed it; BMMR. 🙂
We are very proud and humbled to welcome another car with a rich history in New Zealand motorsport. A Brabham BT 29-23 which was driven by Graham Lawrence in 1971 here in New Zealand as well as in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan. Lawrence won the NZ Gold Star Title in 1971 driving this car. Thanks so much to current owner Poul Christie for placing the car in our care.
...Beautiful!
Are you guys open from wednesday until friday only?
Muhammad we are open on Friday, Saturday and Mondays.We can arrange other days for groups or people planning a visit around travel. Please let me know what your plans are so we can work out something to suit
Thank you residents of Possum Bourne Retirement Village for visiting today we always enjoy groups coming to our Heritage Centre. If any other group would like to visit please get in touch. We can work in with days and times to suit you.
Trophy of the Month
Bruce McLaren received the BOAC trophy a silver plated model airplane on black marble base + $1000. Awarded for 'Man of the Race', at Watkins Glen 13-7-69 Bruce was driving in a Can-Am McLaren M8B and won the race.
Bruce McLaren Heritage Centre welcomes another car with significant New Zealand History.
This car won the New Zealand International Grand Prix in 1989, held at Pukekohe this Swift DB4 1600cc was driven by American Dean Hall. The car comes comes to us from the Kenny Smith collection. Very kindly on loan. The car has also more recently been driven by Andrew Higgins.
Trophy of the Month
Awarded to Bruce for second place at Belgium Grand Prix held on 19 June 1960 at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. He was driving a Cooper T53 4 cyl car, no 4. The Trophy reads - Grand Prix de Belgique, 19 June 1960, Coupe Royal Automobile Club. The book in the back ground is the Cooper Book by Doug Nye.
KiwiSteve is at the Bruce McLaren Heritage Centre. Steve introduced himself and offered his time - we needed the trophies polished - so from dusty and tarnished to Oh My Good so shiny and bright see your reflection. Thanks Steve. Come back anytime.
good work Steve there are some great trophies in the cabinet
Such a cool place 😎
Many thanks for the excellent job
Long time track announcer at Laguna Seca Armando Miranda visited the Bruce McLaren Heritage Centre today, hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in NZ.
Wow! Our new website has gone viral. So many views it has crashed the site. We are working on this and will fix ASAP.
Now back up - and all good.
Have a safe & enjoyable Queens Birthday Weekend, if your taking a break or even if your saving some money at the shops. We will be taking Monday off too - so will be closed on Monday 4th of June. Keep calm and carry on!
Great news!!! Our brand new website is now finished and has just gone live today. We'd love it if you'd make time to take a look and comment. 🙂
Here is the link: bruce-mclaren.com/
Have you visited our website before? When you visit now, you will notice that it looks vastly different this time. That's because we have totally updated the site with a new design, new features, and new content.
We hope you like what you see and easily find all the information you are looking for. It is still a work in progress! Our online shop, including membership purchase, will be coming very soon.
All feedback, both good and bad, is greatly appreciated. Constructive criticism can only help improve our great new site.
Looking forward to your comments. 🙂
The Bruce McLaren Heritage Centre team
Awesome.
Wicked 👍🏻
If only we could all be as masterful as Bruce boy makes you proud to be a kiwi
Absolutely brilliant 👍 🇳🇿🏁🇳🇿🏁🇳🇿 Thank you all involved
Just checked out the website, such a great job, love the opening photos of Bruce, a real introduction to the MAN. Congratulations on such an awesome effort. The Trust itself looks so stunning and I am delighted to see the M23 there, in its never-fading glory, have to visit soon. Thank you all so much for all you have done.
Very cool
EXCELLENT love it, very proud of Uncle Bruce and all that he achieved, in his short time on earth. xoxo
Peter Dunlop cfyi
Great website looking forward to online shop opening soon as I will make a purchase of Mclaren merchandise. Cheers
Great but what about the events coming....🤨
The Bruce McLaren Supporters Club card 2018-2019 has been signed off and processing has started this week for our supporters who have renewed. The card features the M8B's at Laguna Seca. These are being sent out as quickly as we can. Please let us know if you would like to be a supporter and have not received a form.
We always welcome visitors and today was no different. A group of 15 from the Rebus Club of Mt Hobson. They emailed and asked if a group could come and visit - the day and date was arranged. One of there group that grew up in Remuera remembers the blue Austin 7 that we have on display in the shed. Small world or what. They were all petrol heads and it just happened that the Greenwood Corvette needed its engine started - very loud but in a good way. Thanks so much for coming. They combined the Go Karts here at Hampton with a visit for a great day out. one of the group was called Greenwood so he took home a special picture standing next to "his" car.
Bruce McLaren sits on pit lane at Indianapolis in 1968, in one of the Shelby Turbines. The Shelby Turbines were a high-dollar operation and created one of the biggest mysteries in Speedway history. Bruce and teammate, Denny Hulme practiced one day, the next morning the garages were empty, and the doors padlocked. The cars disappeared without explanation overnight. It was suspected that they had a driver controlled device that circumvented the restrictive air inlet opening when on the track, and they were pulled before USAC could inspect them, But that has never been substantiated. Steven Manning photo collection.
Happy Easter 🙂 We will be CLOSED Easter Friday, so come in and see us on Saturday 10-4
Drive Safe and have a Great weekend
We had a visit today from a group of residents of the Edmund Hillary Retirement Village, many of whom remember visiting the original McLaren Service Station in Remuera thanks for the great stories, please come again.
Fabulous facility ... a must visit when in New Zealand
Includes stuff on Denny Hulme.
We will be open all weekend 10-4pm for the Mike Pero MotoFest so if you are coming down to Hampton Downs why not come and see what we have here @Shed47 look out for our new OPEN signs thanks to Falcon Print & Design
Another McLaren car at the Heritage Center.
Tony Roberts has very kindly lent us his 1969 M10a High Wing Formula 5000 5L Chev developing 562hp
That thingy made such beautiful sounds yesterday at the 5000 meet at Hampton
Thanks Tony, that is an amazing thing to see.
The 2 day meeting here at Hampton is now a Saturday only. So we will be closed on Sunday. See you on Monday.
