McLaren Cars, Ltd was established in March, 1989 by Ron Dennis, Mansour Ojjeh, Creighton Brown, the McLaren Group boardmembers and Gordon Murray, the chief designer for the McLaren race team. McLaren had dominated the 1988 Formula One season with drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. While the men were waiting for a delayed flight back to the UK, the question was asked: what would make the ultimate road car ?
Murray wanted to leave the world of Formula 1 racing , so Ron offered him the opportunity to stay on and design the 'ultimate' car. The temptation was too great for Murray to resist and he accepted the challenge to build the ultimate road car at any cost. The name McLaren Cars was given to the new company set up to build this car. The name was originally used by Bruce McLaren, a former racer form New Zealand who died on 2 June, 1970 while testing a Can Am Car at Goodwood, UK.
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