‘Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.' When a 27-year-old Bruce McLaren penned those words in 1964, his new company, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, was less than a year old. In those days, Bruce's vision was shared by fewer than half a dozen loyal souls, who slogged across the world to race his self-made cars. Nowadays, the McLaren Group employs more than 2000 people, all of whom still share Bruce's ideals of combining sportsmanship with solid engineering practice and cutting-edge technical expertise. On Sept. 2, 2013, the McLaren Group will celebrate its 50th anniversary. The exploits of McLaren's greatest world champions will always bring F1 to life: Emerson Fittipaldi ignited the passion of his native Brazil; James Hunt created as many headlines on the front pages as on the back; Niki Lauda and Alain Prost turned sport to science; the burning intensity of Ayrton Senna will live on for ever, while Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton will always be remembered for their raw speed and fearless aggression. McLaren's legacy in North American sportscar racing is writ equally large: in the heyday of the mighty CanAm series, McLaren steamrollered the opposition, lifting five successive championship trophies (1967-1971) and winning an incredible 43 races in our iconic, thundering V8-engined sportscars. McLaren went to the Indy 500 for the first time in 1970, returning with greater strength until we won the USA's most famous motor race in 1974 with Johnny Rutherford. It repeated the feat with Rutherford in 1976, too. Today, every single car in Formula 1, the Indycar Series and NASCAR relies upon McLaren Electronics' standardized ECUs to control their engines and feed data back to the garage. The successful build of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren became the best-selling carbon-based car ever. Since its launch in 2010, McLaren Automotive has developed into a world-class road car manufacturer, successfully developing and building the 12C and the 12C Spider high performance sports cars. Both models exploit our unparalleled understanding of carbon fiber and electronic driver systems to create a groundbreaking product of unequalled weight, strength, performance and driveability. In a return to McLaren sportscar roots, the debut of the 12C GT3 was an unqualified success, scoring 19 victories on its competitive debut in 2012. In September, as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes crossed the flag to win in Monza, McLaren's GT cars also took top spot at races in British, French and Spanish championships – an incredible achievement. It's all a long way from that small south London lock-up back in 1963. – SG
