Why Garden Gate Green and Yamura White are all part of McLaren’s colourful history

Depending how the previous evening had been spent enjoying the festivities at Silverstone, you might have thought you were seeing double when the Formula 1 cars appeared. Four Cadillacs? Surely not? Aside from being Lawrence Stroll’s worst nightmare in having Aston Martin’s shortcomings magnified even further by F1’s newcomers, the presence of four cars in almost identical black and white colour schemes was as curious as Christian Horner managing without a TV interview for more than a year.

It was only when two of the cars seemed faster than the others that you realised these were McLarens, the team’s traditional racing livery being significantly altered to mark McLaren’s entry to F1 60 years ago.

It was a tricky milestone to choose. When Bruce McLaren’s first F1 car made its debut in the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, the M2B was indeed painted predominantly white (with a dark green nose band and central stripe). But colour choice was pragmatic rather than through meaningful or personal preference.

John Frankenheimer, a distinguished film director, was making Grand Prix, a movie lavishly financed by MGM and involving the adventurous use of live grand prix action spliced with onboard footage from sundry racing cars made to look like the real thing. McLaren was only too happy to accept a substantial fee and the request to have his F1 car sprayed white to represent the fictional Japanese ‘Yamura’ team.

With a nod to his Kiwi heritage, Bruce had thought about using green, black and silver, New Zealand’s traditional racing choice in the days when each nation had its own colour identity

It would turn out to be an astute move, McLaren having little return in prize money, the M2B starting just four of the nine grands prix in 1966 and finishing two of them.

What colour would the M2B have otherwise been? With a nod to his Kiwi heritage, Bruce had thought about using green, black and silver, New Zealand’s traditional racing choice in the days when each nation had its own colour identity. In the end, red became the McLaren house colour on early Can-Am sportscars. Indeed, once the Hollywood dollars had been spent, the 1967 McLaren F1 entries appeared in red.

This was all very well until Monza in September, when the haughty Italian organisers demanded that the McLaren be resprayed green rather than interfere with Italy’s proud history of red cars. Bruce refused and the authorities quietly backed off when the McLaren turned out to be the only red car on the front row, Bruce’s McLaren-BRM starting alongside Jack Brabham’s Brabham-Repco and the pole position Lotus-Ford of Jim Clark. The following year, Bruce chose Papaya Orange for the M7A that went on to give McLaren its first grand prix victory at Spa-Francorchamps.

The team had come a long way, both technically and artistically, since the very first racer built by Bruce back in 1964. This car turned out to be green, but it could have been any colour under the sun. Or, more accurately, any colour on the shelves of a local hardware shop.

McLaren’s choice of red in 1967 didn’t go down well with Italian Grand Prix organisers

Photo by: Bernard Cahier / Getty Images

Bruce had been introduced to sportscar racing in North America, where a penchant for cramming lusty V8 engines into the back of anything suitable produced competitive and deliciously noisy cars. A more modest version was a Cooper converted from a single-seater by Roger Penske and raced with great success – albeit powered by a comparatively tame Coventry-Climax flat-four.

When Bruce bought the car from the man who would go on to run his hugely successful eponymous teams and take ownership of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, McLaren’s immediate plan was to shoehorn an Oldsmobile V8 into the back.

Chassis modifications took place in McLaren’s ‘workshop’. This was actually the corner of a large shed that housed road-building machinery. Each night a grader would return, coating the interior of the building and everyone in it with a fine layer of dust and grit. Tyler Alexander, later to become crew chief and an essential part of the McLaren story, recalled the experience in his typically direct and graphic way.

“Looking back now at the part-dirt floor, you wouldn’t believe it,” said the American. “We probably should have had a tetanus shot after going to the goddamned loo.” MTC, this was not.

After the lads had done their best with bristle brushes, the race car didn’t look pretty. But it had a name. Henceforth, it would be unofficially known as the ‘Jolly Green Giant’

Working all hours, the crew, numbering no more than four or five, finished welding the chassis tubes on a Sunday morning. Keen to continue the momentum, Bruce wanted the car painted without delay. Eoin Young, Bruce’s so-called secretary and later to become a renowned motorsport writer, was dispatched to find some paint.

Bear in mind, this was 1964. Shops did not open on Sundays; you would be hard-pressed to find a pub serving after 2pm. Young was in need of refreshment as he combed the Surrey suburb of New Malden before stumbling across a handyman’s shop about to close for the day. The only paint available was an emulsion known as Garden Gate Green. The title on the tin said it all.

After the lads had done their best with bristle brushes, the race car didn’t look pretty. But it had a name. Henceforth, the Cooper-Oldsmobile would be unofficially known as the ‘Jolly Green Giant’. It was, you could say, the first McLaren race car. Try portraying that story on the MCL40. Nobody would want to see a Garden Gate Green McLaren. Least of all, you imagine, Lawrence Stroll.

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