10 replies to this topic

[Megatron]

When Ron Dennis took control of McLaren in 1980, did he fire everyone in the team and replace them or was it virtually the same team with a new management structure?

I always admired Dennis for not changing the name of the team. Can you imagine a "Dennis-Honda".

[David M. Kane]

That is an excellent question, when he bought the team from Mrs.
McLaren, I'm sure some or a lot of the oldtimers stay on. I bet
you can find out more by going to the McLaren website that is maintained by Bruce's daughter. I don't have the link, but I sure
someone else does. I've seen it in previous pieces.

[UAtkins]

http://www.bruce-mclaren.com/

That should get you to the site. Now I really wish that Harry Pearce (my Dad's former mechanic) had email, I could ask him that question for you. He was with McLaren from the end of 1964 until 1980. That leads me to believe that perhaps he left voluntarily (or not) when Ron Dennis took over.

[Eric McLoughlin]

Dennis is an already established name in the UK motor industry. They are also based at Woking and specialise in truck and bus chassis. In particular, they are well known for their fire engines. I'm sure having an F1 team called Dennis in the same locality as a similar company, also in vehicle manufacturing (albeit very different) might have caused some confusion.

[MarkWRX]

One of the things that Ron Dennis has been criticized for is extreme loyalty to his company and the people that work there. In the excellent book "Teamwork" there are stories about people who have been at McLaren for many years and some of them have, ummm, kinda indistinct job descriptions. I think he rewards loyalty with loyalty ("The essence of loyalty is reciprocity" is my signature line in another forum) and he puts a lot of effort into finding projects for people to work on.

When Gordon Murray wanted to get out of the F1 design, McLaren decided on the F1 road car project. I think some other team principles might have said "Yes, well, thanks for your effort. Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out."

And certainly, those people who stuck with the team during the dark days of the mid-90's have been rewarded too.

Mark

[Zawed]

I do know Teddy Mayer left shortly after Ron took over, but Jo Rameriez has been there a long time...

[Milan Fistonic]

Some quotes from Doug Nye's book, McLaren the GP, Can-Am and Indy Cars.

Teddy Mayer; " At that time (Autumn 1979) Ron and Malboro came to me and suggested a merger between Team McLaren and Ron's Project Four team and we weren't interested."

"About a year later, in the late-summer of 1980 they came back again and this time told us we'd better do it, because we weren't doing any good alone."

...."Now part of the deal was that Gordon (Coppuck) had to go. He wasn't included in it. He wasn't surprised when I told him, nor even very unhappy, though he wasn't by any means over-joyed.... So the merger went through and Gordon went off to join March, then set-up his own Spirit team ..."

The merger, forming a new company titled McLaren International, was announced in early-September 1980...... Both Team Mclaren and Project Four contributed assets.....

... Teddy took care of adminsistration, accounting and ran one of the cars in the field.... Ron Dennis ran the sponsorship side....Tyler Alexander ran the test team, and engineered the other car at race meetings.

Ron and Teddy were officially joint Managing Directors, Teddy becoming Chairman and Tyler and John Barnard taking Directorships. Teddy had owned 85 per cent of Team McLaren and now took the largest single shareholding in McLaren International, 45 per cent.

Towards the end of the year (1982) it became clear that the gifted and ambitious former Project Four principals didn't really need Mayer and Alexander..... They discussed terms that winter, from October to December, and just before Christmas 1982 Dennis and Barnard bought out Teddy's 45 per cent plus Tyler's small personal shareholding, and they left the racing team they had helped found with Bruce himself nearly twenty action-packed years before.

[Roger Clark]

...."Now part of the deal was that Gordon (Murray) had to go

Gordon Coppuck presumably

[Zawed]

Originally posted by Roger Clark


Gordon Coppuck presumably

Yeah I think so too.

[dmj]

Is Ron Dennis in any way related with Dennis company in Woking that build these fabulous fire engines?

[karlcars]

Here, for your confidential enjoyment, are some extracts from the chapter of my forthcoming Porsche history that deal with the McLaren doings in the period referred to:


Observing these developments [in Grand Prix racing] with interest was a new Formula 1 team. Although it carried the name of the organization that Bruce McLaren first introduced to Grand Prix racing in 1966, McLaren International could in fact be considered a new team dating from its formation, which was announced in early September, 1980. McLaren International was the product of a merger of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing with Project Four, a successful Formula 2 team that was planning an entry into Formula 1. Wielding the shotgun at the marriage was the sponsor of both teams, Philip Morris with its Marlboro brand.

Philip Morris had been second time lucky in brokering the merger. Using the ubiquitous Ford-Cosworth 3-liter V-8, the McLaren team finished a distant seventh in the constructors’ championship in 1979 with only 15 points. Something had to be done, said the cigarette maker, which from the middle of that season began promoting an alliance with Project Four, which was run with admirable precision by former racing mechanic and entrepreneur Ron Dennis. In 1979 Project Four and driver Niki Lauda were on their way to the championship in the ProCar series that accompanied the F.1 races, using BMW M1 sports cars. Their satisfied sponsor was Marlboro.

Part of the deal, said Philip Morris, was that designer John Barnard would take charge of the merged team’s technology. Ron Dennis had recruited fellow Briton Barnard, who was 33 in 1979, to begin designing a Formula 1 car for Project Four. A role for Barnard was resisted by Teddy Mayer, the legally trained American who as the 85-percent shareholder was the undisputed boss of McLaren. In 1972 Barnard had worked at McLaren for Mayer, who found him a prickly customer to deal with. The two had spoken again later in the 1970s but had not come to terms, so Barnard had joined Project Four instead.

His 1980 season rendered moot any objections by Mayer. McLaren did even worse; the end of the year would find it ranked an ignominious ninth among Formula 1 makes with only 11 points. Mayer acquiesced to Philip Morris and the two businesses were merged, initially using the McLaren premises. All activities save Formula 1 were phased out. In the new business Mayer was the largest shareholder with 45 percent. The other 5 percent on the McLaren side was held by American Tyler Alexander, an experienced field engineer. The 50 percent shareholding on the Project Four side was allocated among John Barnard, Creighton Brown and Ron Dennis, with Dennis holding the largest proportion.

Chairman of the new team was Teddy Mayer, who also held a joint managing directorship with Ron Dennis. This was not the easiest of arrangements, although Mayer would later say that “we got along better than I thought we would.” The directors met to hammer out strategy and then allocated responsibilities, with Mayer running the team while Dennis looked after all aspects of its presentation and image as well as the vital sponsorship: “My operational task was to secure sponsorship and manage all the sponsorship for the team.”

For his new outfit John Barnard designed a Grand Prix car which the team dubbed the MP4/1. It was the first racing car to have a monocoque molded of epoxy resin reinforced by fabric made of immensely strong carbon fiber. Beautifully finished, it impressed at once at its unveiling on March 6th, 1981. “I have told Marlboro that we will win at least one Grand Prix this year,” Dennis told journalist Alan Henry. He made good on this commitment with a win by John Watson in the British Grand Prix. Watson’s popular win was the first for McLaren in three and a half long years. It would contribute to the team’s rise to sixth in the 1981 makes’ championship. But this was not yet again the McLaren that had been the world-champion constructor in 1974.

[Later] Tensions were building that would have to be addressed. They came to a head that summer of ‘82 when Dennis found a note on his desk from Teddy Mayer saying, "Ron, this can’t go on any longer. We need to speak."

Stepping into the adjoining office of his fellow managing director, Dennis asked, “What’s this, Teddy?” “Well, you know we disagree,” answered the American. “A company can’t run with two heads and the bottom line is I think that either you’ve got to buy me or I’ve got to buy you.” Taking this on board, Dennis donned his thinking cap. His solution was simple but shrewd: he asked Mayer to place a value on the company and give him the option of buying or selling shares. That pressed Mayer to come up with a figure that bore some relation to reality. Mayer agreed.

When he saw Mayer’s number, Dennis decided to be a buyer and asked for five days to make good. He gained the backing of the company’s own bank and, with the help of Philip Morris, arranged a bridging loan to complete his commitment to Mayer and to Tyler Alexander as well. These events, which concluded in December, 1982, were followed later by a transaction that saw both John Barnard and Creighton Brown sell their McLaren shares, for personal reasons, and an investment by the TAG Group that gave it a 60 percent interest in the company for $2.8 million. Dennis held the balance.


And so it has been until quite recently, when DaimlerChrysler bought out some of the TAG interest.