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Material sought for film on Bruce McLaren’s life

15 December, 2015

Acclaimed director Roger Donaldson (The Bank Job, The Recruit, Cocktail), is making a feature documentary on the life of Bruce McLaren, a New Zealander who was well-known internationally as a race car driver, designer, and inventor in the 1950s and ’60s.

Donaldson is hunting for rare audio-visual material (photographs, home movies, audio recordings, etc.) of McLaren, who founded the highly successful Formula One McLaren Motor Racing Team.

Donaldson, a motor racing fan, directed The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins, about another New Zealand speed pioneer, Burt Munro.

“Legendary Kiwi race car driver and engineer Bruce McLaren was tragically killed testing one of his cars in 1970,” Donaldson says. “We are very keen to find archival footage that documents this extraordinary New Zealander’s life. So, if you have or know the whereabouts of any potentially interesting film, please be in touch with us. Photographs, home movies, souvenirs; if it is about Bruce, we would love to see it.”

The film’s producers feel there may be more treasures yet to be located, possibly in England, where he lived, and Europe and USA, where he raced.

The film is produced by Matthew Metcalfe (Beyond the Edge, The Dead Lands), through his company General Film Corporation, and Fraser Brown (Orphans & Kingdoms). It has investment from the New Zealand Film Commission, Images & Sound, and The Giltrap Group.

The producers ask that anyone with material featuring Bruce McLaren, or associated people in his life during the 1950s and ’60s, contact researcher Pheobe Shum at [email protected]. 

The other Q car

12 August, 2026

Say the word ‘bond’ to anyone in the street and around 80 per cent straight away think of pop culture’s least-secret secret agent. The other 20 per cent may think of the wad of cash required to secure a flat or hire equipment that one gets back providing the fixtures and fittings stay much as they were.
However, mention ‘bond’ in specialist classic car circles and people will spin a very different yarn. If you dig deep enough, you will find an eccentric British carmaker that, throughout its 23 years in business, spawned some quirky and charming little cars.
The company was founded by Paul Sharp in 1922 under the name of Sharp’s Commercials Limited. However, the company did not start producing cars until 1948. The first car to carry the Bond name was the Bond Minicar. A three-wheeled, soft-top, two-cylinder eco car, the Minicar was a big hit at the time as the desire for an economical urban runabout that didn’t attract four-wheel car tax was strong in post-war Britain. All in all, 34,285 Minicars were produced over 26 years in a variety of variants.

Lunch with Bill Leckie: An Imp’s tale

6 August, 2026

Seeking limelight is part of Bill Leckie’s DNA, but when I asked him if anyone had written about his career and the cars he created, he didn’t think so. Even so, I was delighted when he agreed to sit down with me over a pie and coffee to reminisce. I started by asking how it is that someone who is so fanatical about F1 only ever raced saloon cars? Well, we’ll get to that, but where did things start? “I went to Cornwall Park Primary School and then to Remuera Intermediate where I became good mates with Geoff Perry, son of the legendary motorcycle racing legend Len.” Geoff Perry was 23 and on the edge of stardom when he was killed in a mystery air disaster over the Pacific in 1973. “We used to race around his backyard on a cutdown motorbike. It was friendly competition that I suppose helped hone our racing instincts. There was never much between us and so, by 11 or 12, I had a definite leaning towards speed.”