McLaren’s first flush
Extraordinary tales from the Motor Sport digital archive
Some Formula 1 designers are like rock stars. Along with the wins and trophies, they suck up all the adulation and limelight too. Chapman, Murray and Newey spring to mind. Others keep a low profile, in spite of their incredible achievements: Gordon Coppuck is one such engineering genius.
The only person in history to design both the winning cars of the F1 world title and Indianapolis in the same year twice, it’s now 50 years since that initial grand prix triumph with Emerson Fittipaldi and the McLaren M23.
Appropriately due to its recent resurgence, most of Coppuck’s success came with McLaren, and he remembers those halcyon years in Motor Sport’s April 2015 interview.
In the mid-1960s, Coppuck was a young draughtsman at the National Gas Turbine Establishment when colleague Robin Herd announced he was off to be McLaren’s chief designer. It wasn’t long before Herd invited Coppuck to join him.
“Robin and Bruce McLaren conceived the designs, I did the drawings and the mechanics built the cars,” Coppuck remembers. “It was an absolute thrill.”
In 1970 the team would be rocked by the death of Bruce, but it fought on.
“Since joining in ’65 I’d learnt a lot from the people around me – Bruce till the day he died,” says Coppuck. “To win just eight years after going to work with Robin was incredible.”
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