Bruce’s First McLaren The Jolly Green Giant Found After Being Lost For 57 Years
The long lost 1964 Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile of Bruce McLaren, the first car to wear the McLaren name has been found after being lost of 57 years.
The car is something of a legend, a form of lost Holy Grail in motorsport, has amazingly been unearthed in such a long time. The fact that it was the first car to ever car the name of New Zealand born Bruce McLaren makes it hugely significant and it has finally returned to the UK.
After being unveiled at the Bonhams Festival of Speed sale at Goodwood the car will now be sold at the upcoming Revival weekend auction.
The car is the origins of the McLaren racing team and was very successful with three top level drivers. Bruce McLaren himself along with Roger Penske and Walt Hansgen.
The Copper-Zerex-Oldsmobile didn’t just have the three highly regarded owners, it was also raced in many different configurations. The car was continually adapted over its racing life and ranged from a Formula 1 single seater to sports cars. There were even three different versions of those.
From 1962 to 1964 the car matched different racing regulations and was given the name ‘The Great Transformer’. When Bruce McLaren got his hands on it the car had its chassis modified and painted in a shade of ‘garden gate’ green. Apparently, this was the only colour available when a rushed re-completion was taking place. Another nickname was given to the car due to the colour, but the track performance was earning it a great deal of admiration.
The car then vanished towards the late 1960s and was found in a dismantled state hidden away in some South American storage over 50 years later.
A six-week voyage going via the USA and Europe has seen the Jolly Green Giant return to the shores of the UK this year and taken to Goodwood for its first public outing in more than five decades.
The Great Transformer
The Jolly Green Giant started life as a 1 ½ litre Formula 1 Cooper with a Coventry Climax engine. The car was entered into the 1961 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen by the millionaire Briggs Cunningham and driven by Walt Hangsen.
Hangsen crashed the car, and it was sold by Cunningham for $1,250 to the upcoming young driver, Roger Penske, who went on to become the billionaire head of the international Penske Corporation.
Being somewhat forward thinking, Penske had the Formula 1 car rebuilt as a lightweight Grand Prix car in sports car clothing.
Penske decided to keep the central driving position, enveloping the car in a sleek streamlined body and became known as the ‘Zerex Special’ after the anti-freeze sponsor. Penske went on to dominate America’s highest paying, and most important, sports car races. He won the 1962 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at the Riverside Raceway, the Pacific Grand Prix at Laguna Seca and the Puerto Rican Grand Prix at Caguas.
Regulation changes saw the car adoption an offset driving position to suit the sports car form before Penske sold the car to John Mecom Jr from Texas. Penske drove the car for the Texan and won the 1963 Marlboro and Cumberland races in the USA and the major international Guards Trophy at Brands Hatch in England.
Bruce McLaren & The Jolly Green Giant
The car had been successful, but it wasn’t until it was in the ownership of Bruce McLaren that the car became something of a legend. Bruce was then leading the Cooper Car Company Works Formula 1 team and had been an admirer of the car for quite some time and bought it in 1964.
Bruce would take the car and race it at sports car events under the name of his new personal team of McLaren Motor Racing Team between Formula 1 outings for Cooper.
McLaren used a 2.7 litre Climax engine, which was similar to the one used by Roger Penske, and drove the car to victory in the British international sports car races ad both Aintree and Silverstone after which he had the car converted to use a 3.5 litre Traco modified Oldsmobile V8.
The modified chassis was finished rather hurriedly in a shade of green that you could only find on a Sunday, the kind that was used to paint a garden gate which earned its latest name of ‘The Jolly Green Giant’.
Bruce managed several more wins in the now Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile, the international Player’s 200 race at Mosport Park in Toronto and with an uprated 3.9 litre Oldsmobile v8, the international Guards Trophy race at Brands Hatch in 1964. The cars second consecutive victory after Roger Penske won it the previous year.
Bruce’s final appearance in the Cooper was at Goodwood where he started from Pole position in the 1964 RAC Tourist Trophy, leading Jim Clark and Graham Hill in the rivals Lotus and Ferrari racing cars. He managed to set the fastest lap until he unfortunately retired with clutch failure.
The McLaren built prototype, the M1 sports car, replaced the Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile in September 1964 and it passed through three more owners before being bought by the current owner’s father in South America.
The Discovery Of The Lost McLaren
The car has been preserved for a long time in dismantled form and has survived pretty much complete apart from the body panels, not that it looks from the photographs. However, it is still somewhat incredibly original.
When the car arrived back in the UK it was met by the last surviving member of the Bruce McLaren team, Howdey Ganley, who was also a Le Mans and CanAm racing driver, Doug Nye, the Bonhams competition car consultant and author of Cooper Cars, and the editor of Oldracingcars.com, Allen Brown.
The authenticity of the car was confirmed when the team had been given the change to inspect the contents of the shipping crate.
Howden Ganley said: “I have always felt privileged to have been Bruce McLaren’s third shop-floor employee. Incredibly, it’s now 58 years since I helped team-mates Tyler Alexander and Wal Willmott work on the Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile. Having just examined this chassis frame upon its return to England, for me that is certainly the real car.”
Doug Nye added: “Opening the crate upon the car’s return to English soil, to find this iconic piece of motor racing treasure inside, has been truly memorable. I saw Bruce McLaren’s spectacular Goodwood TT drive in it back in 1964, and now here I am in 2022, handling such a piece of stupendous motor racing archaeology. For me it’s magical!”
Allen Brown commented: “I have known about this car for many years and to actually see it was just fabulous. It’s great to see cars before they are restored and it was a surprise that this was in such good condition. The climate in South America must be kind to metal as it would have been corroded had it been kept in this country.
The car was exactly as we expected it to look and the parts were exactly where they should be. It’s spot on.”
Mark Osborne, Bonhams Global Director of Motorsport, said: “The unearthing of this automotive treasure from half a world away is our version of Indiana Jones finding the Arc of the Covenant, so great is its multi-tiered motor racing significance.
“Of all its headline-grabbing attributes, its career when driven by two of the most prominent and highly respected giants of the sport – Roger Penske and Bruce McLaren – perhaps speaks loudest. And it was, of course, the first McLaren sports car to carry the famous Michael Turner-designed Kiwi emblem.
“We are justly proud to display the car publicly at The Goodwood Festival of Speed – 58 years after, in Bruce’s hands, it starred in the 1964 Goodwood TT race. To celebrate its homecoming, there could be no more appropriate setting.”
Bruce McLaren’s ‘Jolly Green Giant’ 1964 Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile is currently on display at Bonhams, Goodwood House, Chichester, before it wil be sold at the The Goodwood Revival Sale at the Goodwood Motor Circuit on the 17 September, 2022.
To find out more, visit www.bonhams.com.
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