Thursday 26th March 2020

McLaren Elva honours first orange McLaren

Another Ultimate Series one-off, now paying homage to the M6a Can-Am racer

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Orange is very quickly becoming a colour as synonymous with McLaren as red is with Ferrari and silver is with Mercedes. Look to those cars for sale and everything from a £65k 12C to a million-pound P1 can be had in McLaren Orange, Ventura Orange, Papaya Spark or similar. Obviously the Formula 1 cars carry it as well, and four of the F1 LMs were painted in you-know-what.

It's a significant colour for McLaren, then, so much so that this latest one-off Elva - don't be surprised if more are to follow - celebrates the first orange car from the brand. Normally that might be a bit naff, but given the first orange McLaren was the M6a, it sounds a little less like gratuitous nostalgia.

Why? Because the M6a was the car that began McLaren's incredible Can-Am domination. Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme went to Road America in September 1967, each driving an M6A competitively for the first time; McLaren put his car on pole and Hulme won the race. They followed that up with a double one-two at Bridgehampton and Mosport. McLaren himself won at Laguna Seca and Riverside, meaning John Surtees was the only driver not in an M6A to win in the 1967 Can-Am season. McLaren had announced itself to the world of motorsport, beating Lola, Ferrari, and Chaparral along the way, and it had done so in a McLaren Orange M6A. The team then went on to dominate Can-Am for five seasons in more orange cars. So there's your link.

This Elva is in fact painted Anniversary Orange, a new colour specifically for the car. Indeed McLaren goes as far as to say that the Elva is "more than a homage", since it "replicates that Can-Am slaying icon of 1967 in every detail of its external paint scheme." A build by McLaren Special Operations, it follows the M1a Theme in harking back to the sports car racing past that the Elva's design aims to emulate. We look forward to the Ueno Clinic, Harrods and Fina themes in due course...

[BVB]

Orange is Lamborghini's colour.

[Plate spinner]

BVB said:

Orange is Lamborghini's colour.

Really?

I associate Lamborghini's with vivid Green colours

[thegreenhell]

It looks more brown than orange to me, nothing like the colour of the original.


Also, it PH policy to drop a howler into every article?

article said:

and every single F1 LM was painted in you-know-what

Every single one apart from the 40% of production that was grey with multicolour stripes.

[WokkaWokka]

What a nice looking machine.

[Matt Bird]

thegreenhell said:

Every single one apart from the 40% of production that was grey with multicolour stripes.

Well you learn something new every day! I was going off the earlier story:

https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-potw/mclaren-f...

that said they were all orange. I'll do some more research and correct as appropriate!


Matt

[Low Pro]

Looks like it was painted in a Essex tanning salon

[Macboy]

Each time I see another new livery or image of this car I think “it’s a Lotus/Elemental/Zenos competitor priced somewhere below £100k. And then I remember is a McLaren and it’s £2m and my head all but explodes. It literally doesn’t matter how clever the airflow management is or how fast it goes, they will never be driven and when they’re next seen it’ll be at an auctioned in 10 years with 800 miles on.

[Leftfootwonder]

I think it looks ace except i'd want a small but proper windscreen instead of the cheap plastic-looking pop up thing they have on there and whilst I appreciate it is a modern interpretation, the steering wheel is just too black and fat rimmed. Give it a nice classic wheel, please.

Not sure how much an Elva was new back in the 60's but some of the Ferrari's they were racing against were in the region of £10,000ish in those days. For a car you could take racing and drive home again. In today's money that's about £350k, not £2m!!

[LotusOmega375D]

What about a report on the Bond Bug? Or the Outspan car? They were orange too.

[ate one too]

That ain't Orange ... that's JRG.

[Pericoloso]

BVB said:

Orange is Lamborghini's colour.

The only orange car in the museum in June.




I bet there's lots more red cars in Ferrari's museums.

I've never been aware that Lamborghini had it's own colour.

[chelme]

It looks okay.

[mwstewart]

Their best design yet.

[British Beef]

thegreenhell said:

It looks more brown than orange to me, nothing like the colour of the original.


Also, it PH policy to drop a howler into every article?

article said:

and every single F1 LM was painted in you-know-what

Every single one apart from the 40% of production that was grey with multicolour stripes.[/quote

Looks like the roll bar sits about 2 inches below his helmet...... safety has changed a little!!

[S1KRR]

thegreenhell said:

It looks more brown than orange to me, nothing like the colour of the original.


Also, it PH policy to drop a howler into every article?

article said:

and every single F1 LM was painted in you-know-what

Every single one apart from the 40% of production that was grey with multicolour stripes.

THIS!

For those wondering about 2 of the LMs. They were the ones that went to the Sultan of Brunei.





Sultan owns from memory LM1, LM4 and LM5 (LM2 and LM3 owned by different individuals in the USA) Though LM5 is Papaya

Edited by S1KRR on Friday 27th March 00:33

[Kolbenkopp]

[rodericb]

BVB said:

Orange is Lamborghini's colour.

Interesting - how do you figure that?

[Johnspex]

S1KRR said:

thegreenhell said:

It looks more brown than orange to me, nothing like the colour of the original.


Also, it PH policy to drop a howler into every article?

article said:

and every single F1 LM was painted in you-know-what

Every single one apart from the 40% of production that was grey with multicolour stripes.

THIS!

For those wondering about 2 of the LMs. They were the ones that went to the Sultan of Brunei.





Sultan owns from memory LM1, LM4 and LM5 (LM2 and LM3 owned by different individuals in the USA) Though LM5 is Papaya

Edited by S1KRR on Friday 27th March 00:33

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That looks more like Southall than Brunei. It's where the Sultan keeps his polo ponies , you know.

[S1KRR]

Johnspex said:

That looks more like Southall than Brunei. It's where the Sultan keeps his polo ponies , you know.

Looks more like Woking tbh

See where that DHL van is.

https://goo.gl/maps/g48MmT5MgSSi2Kxr5

That exact spot