155 replies to this topic

[PCC]

This suggests to me that Mr Codling has read Mr Nye and applied it to his own article in that part he describes as "Flights of fancy". Just a guess. But that's not exactly what Mr Nye wrote, is it?

Yes, I suspect he just relied on secondary sources. I knew TNF could do better, which is why I brought it up here!

[CS72]

Re. M6GT update, a check through G gives a recent Top Gear article of the car OBH 500H now owned by private Collector in America with just over 2k miles on it and looked after by McLaren Chicago. Car looks great, a fitting tribute to Bruce.

[Alan Baker]

No, not really, the aim was to produce a coupé version of the M6A CanAm car, with the intention of having a car to sell in the lucrative Group 4 GT series. Sadly for McLaren, after they had submitted a homologation application for the car, the FIA moved the goalposts, altering the rules for the World Championship of Makes, requiring manufacturers to produce 50 examples before a car could be considered, which McLaren was never able to do. Other contenders like Porsche and Ferrari cheated of course in making the required numbers. The M6GT was nearing completion, and rather than scrap it, Bruce decided to finish it as a car drivable on the road, as long as the driver was very brave and possessed a good pair of earplugs. Only Bruce's single car was ever made by McLaren, and possibly a further two or three by Trojan. Oft repeated rumours that many other sets of bodywork and other parts were made at the time are wholly false, though some counterfeit non-official versions were produced elsewhere, probably in the USA, though these had nothing at all to do with either McLaren or Trojan. The car's concept was a sound business proposition initially, but it was hardly Bruce's fault that the FIA pulled the rug from underneath him.

Well, the FIA did move the goal posts with regard to homologation of "Sports Cars", but it was the other way, from 50 to 25, and both Porsche and Ferrari did build 25 examples of their respective cars. The change to 25 was always believed to have been a sop to Lola, who could count all T70s (including open ones) in the total and thus get the T70 Mk.3 homologated. It would, presumably,  have been difficult to deny McLaren the same latitude regarding the M6.

[layabout]

In an article on the Autosport website, Stuart Codling writes:

 

Lucrative though these peripheral [Can-Am & Indy] activities were, they entailed a considerable division of labour in McLaren's busy industrial unit.... while the M7 family of F1 cars was neat and compact, development suffered for the dilution of resources - and Bruce's tendency to doggedly pursue his engineering flights of fancy.

 

Is there any truth to that?

 

How did we get from a tribute to Bruce McLaren to talking about one person's absurd comment?

 

Moreover, I don’t understand how a single, offhand comment can explode into a discussion that assumes the comment was in anyway accurate, as in “Bruce's tendency to doggedly pursue his engineering flights of fancy”. 

 

If this is just an unsubstantiated comment by Codling, who cares & what’s the point? I imagine the TNF contributors have all read enough about Bruce & the team & have not read a single reference to Bruce McLaren being described as prone to flights of fancy. Don’t you smell an Autosport-like baiting going on? Make an offhand, unsubstantiated statement & see who takes up the discussion.

 

Codling has been associated with two popular books, one being Real Racers, a compilation of Klemantaski’s photos with captions by F1 drivers & the other a coffee table book (& calendar) of F1 cars taken by James Mann entitled The Art of the Formula 1 Race Car.  I’m not sure what Codling’s contribution was to either. I'm not sure he has much information or perspective to contribute to the world of racing.

 

Codling doesn’t attribute his "flights of fancy" comment to anyone & he is too young to have been around when Bruce was alive, so I wonder where he is getting this view. Certainly not from publications of the day, or any since.

 

As for the M7C, that was certainly no flight of fancy. F1 teams were, as always, learning new things about aerodynamics, high/low polar moments & a lot more areas of development than I could ever understand. Are these things seriously being dismissed as flights of fancy? Engineering that involves substantial cost(s) & effort done on a whim??? I think not.

[10kDA]

We talked about it because a question was asked. You're the only one who gave us any background on Codling, and it explains a lot. Thanks for the info. I doubt Codling's intention with his article was to bait anyone, more like he was writing from a specific angle and set the tone of his article with the statement in question. Maybe Codling should have put the period right after "...engineering".

 

Bruce's legacy continues and this particular topic within this thread is totally appropriate in my view.

[Nigel Beresford]

I didn't read the article (Autosport isn't worth paying for any more), but the (ir)relevance of the comment is very dependent on the context in terms of is it being used in relation to the design philosophy behind a particular car, or is it being used in relation to a perceived lack of performance by McLaren during a particular era or in a specific series? The assertion as quoted here rather briefly was self evident twaddle but debunking it requires more specifics. 

Edited by Nigel Beresford, 26 June 2020 - 12:28.