Barn-find McLaren sells for AU$1.54M at auction

By: Unique Cars magazine

Date: 05.10.2022

After 57 years in storage, the Bruce McLaren Racing Team’s first sportscar, the Cooper-Zerex Oldsmobile, sold for AU$1.54 million at Bonhams Goodwood Revival Collectors car auction

It was the first time the car had been at Goodwood since it started from pole position in the 1964 RAC Tourist Trophy race, with a young Bruce McLaren leading the likes of Jim Clark, Graham Hill and Denny Hulme while going on to set fastest race lap.

While the gifted New Zealand-born Grand Prix, Can Am and Le Mans-winning driver/constructor excelled in the Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile, it had already enjoyed fame in the hands of others.

Prior to McLaren acquiring the car for his new racing team, Roger Penske drove it to victory in the 1962 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix, Pacific Grand Prix, Puerto Rican Grand Prix and Guards Trophy event at Brands Hatch, England, along with many other minor races.

During the Penske period the car was powered by a 2.7-litre Coventry Climax engine bought from Jack Brabham. After McLaren purchased it, his team dropped in an American alloy-block 3.5-litre Oldsmobile V8.

McLaren’s first win in the car, sporting for the first time the distinctive McLaren Team emblem, was the British international sports car races at Aintree and Silverstone.

It was painted in the only paint the team could find on an English Sunday; garden-gate green. The team nicknamed it The Jolly Green Giant.

After shipping it to Canada McLaren debuted the car, with winning the international Player’s 200 race. He was also victorious in the Guards Trophy race at Brands Hatch a year after Penske won the same race in the same car. Its last iteration in McLaren’s hands saw it powered by a 3.9-litre Oldsmobile V8.

McLaren sold the Cooper-Zerex-Oldsmobile to amateur driver Dave Morgan who moved it on to another racer from Venezuela, from where the car has re-emerged. The Cooper was replaced in 1964 with the McLaren designed and built McLaren M1 sports car, the first to wear the fabled name.

From Unique Cars #471, Oct/Nov 2022

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