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Daily Driven: a Japan-based McLaren P1 commuter

13 July, 2016

If I were to say to you that you have one choice of car to make your daily commute in, in a city as congested as Tokyo, what would it be? For most, the criteria would include being small in size, affordable to run — maybe even a hybrid — automatic, and comfortable seating. Well, besides the excessive price tag, surprisingly the McLaren P1 fits most of the criteria — it’s even a hybrid that can cruise in full electric mode! Go Hiramatsu, a Tokyo-based lawyer, uses his McLaren as his daily driver, and come the weekends, he heads out into the mountains or to his nearest racetrack. So much respect for this guy! Enjoy the clip. 

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

5 February, 2025

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

31 January, 2025

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup