Sun, sea and supercars

It’s every car enthusiast’s dream adventure – a 1670km drive through the spiritual home of McLaren on some of the finest roads in the Southern Hemisphere.

The UK-based car-maker wanted to commemorate the life of Kiwi-born founder Bruce McLaren in style. The Epic New Zealand Tour had been years in the making but ultimately delivered a mouth-watering display of auto exotica.

Only McLaren owners were invited. Some have paid as much as $A85,000 for the chance to take part. They travelled from as far away as California, Hong Kong and the Lebanon, shipping their cars out by boat.

The hot metal on show included every current model, plus a P1 hypercar and the Holy Grail of McLarens – a $A20-million F1 from the 1990s that belongs to a Melbourne businessman.

Mingling with customers was five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell – himself a McLaren driver in the late 1960s. Bruce’s daughter Amanda was there too, as well as former Williams F1 driver Bruno Senna, nephew of the legendary Ayrton and now a McLaren test driver himself.

Senna sat beside me in a McLaren 675 LT as the cavalcade left Auckland. The Brazilian had just had a new LT delivered to his home in Monaco and was keen to show me how well the car performed.

“I’ve driven many fast cars but when it comes to spending my own money, I’m very fussy about what I buy. I don't think there is a better road machine than this.”

The exclusive drive from Auckland to Queenstown wound its way down the length of New Zealand on a specially designed route. It included track days, spectacular scenery, a helicopter ride with All Blacks rugby hero Ritchie McCaw, plus the very best food, wine and accommodation that New Zealand can offer.

“New Zealand is a special place for anybody involved with McLaren,” said Senna. “Bruce was a grand prix-winning driver, a pioneering car designer and founder of one of the most successful F1 teams in history. Like my uncle, he truly deserves to be called a legend.”

The police have ‘legendary’ powers to control bad driving in New Zealand too, so McLaren was determined the event should not turn into a Gumball Rally. The ‘Boy Racer Rule’ allows courts to deter persistent speeding offenders by confiscating their car – then having it crushed.

The maximum speed limit is 100km/h, officers hand out tickets for cutting corners and motorists can lose their driving licence for exceeding the speed limit by just 40km/h.

New Zealand may be similar in size to Great Britain but with a head count of just over four million, I found the roads refreshingly empty. The population does have a voracious appetite for motor sport and thousands lined the route to see us pass.

Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland, where his parents ran a service station. He entered his first hill-climb in an Austin 7 Ulster when he was just 14. Later, he won the New Zealand Grand Prix Association’s Driver To Europe scheme for promising racers.

McLaren joined the Cooper factory team in England alongside Jack Brabham and won the 1959 United States Grand Prix – the youngest ever winner. After more victories he set up McLaren Motor Racing, which competed in F1 and then very successfully in Can-Am.

McLaren died on the Lavant straight at Goodwood, England, in 1970 while testing a new Can-Am car. He famously wrote in a 1964 motor racing book: “To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do better cannot be foolhardy.”

So it was only right we took a detour 30 miles south of Auckland, to drive past the Pukekohe Park Raceway. Now a horse racing track, Pukekohe originally opened in 1963 as the venue for the New Zealand Grand Prix.

John Surtees won that first race, with Bruce McLaren taking the title in 1964, driving a Cooper Climax. Although there’s little to mark the track’s illustrious motoring past, other winners included Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Bruce’s fellow countryman, Chris Amon.

Later the tour stopped at the Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park – formerly Taupo Motorsport Park – about three hours from Auckland at Taupo, in the centre of the North Island. Although Bruce McLaren never raced there, the 2.2-mile track was re-named in his honour in 2007.

The track session was planned as a chance for owners to ‘size up’ fellow drivers and show off their driving skills. Although some brought their own sets of slick tyres, heavy rain prevented an assault on the lap record.

Manoeuvring so many low-slung vehicles onto the inter-island ferry between North and South islands the next day could have had expensive consequences. However, McLarens boast electronic height adjustment that can take the scrape out of the loading process.

Soon the tour was passing through the stunning Marlborough Sounds on a serene four-hour journey that didn’t include roaring exhaust pipes.

The scenery suddenly stepped up a gear as the tour reached the South Island. The route took the multi-million dollar convoy down the scenic west coast to Punakaiki, in the Paparoa National Park.

McLaren’s adventure was big news on New Zealand television. Nightly coverage meant more spectators on the road with each passing day, who applauded us as we passed through every village and intersection.

And for wealthy supercar owners looking for a memento of their New Zealand tour, what about a McLaren GT4?

Former BTCC driver Danny Buxton showed off the racing version of the 570S at the finale of the event, hot lapping around the newly-opened Highlands Motorsport Park near Queenstown.

The Epic Tour covered more than 1600km with barely a speeding ticket along the way.

That night, I asked Amanda McLaren what her father might have thought of the event.

“I think he would have felt honoured. He was a very proud Kiwi and returned home as often as he could. You only have to look at the response from residents here, almost 50 years after he died, to see how his memory lives on.”

Derek Bell, who knew McLaren in the late 1960s added: “Bruce was almost invincible with his Cam-Am cars and I’m pretty certain he planned to go on to race GTs at Le Mans.

“If he could have seen the McLaren road cars that took part in this New Zealand tour he would have been gobsmacked and stunned at his legacy. Even the young people who turned out to watch the drive are amazed the cars still have a flying Kiwi logo on the bonnet. It would have been a very proud moment for him to be here.”