Even being saddled with a name like ‘Mararn’ does not spoil the raw appeal of this local kit version of McLaren’s original but ill-fated road-going supercar

By Patrick Harlow

I meet Andrew Farrow in the little South Island town of Rangiora, where he introduces me to the current version of his constantly changing car collection. He owns the Eyrewell Forest Motor Company. Not having a forecourt his sales generally occur online where he buys and sells cars to add to his fluid collection. An example of what I mean by ‘fluid’ is the F-Type Jaguar that he purchased recently and enjoys driving. It is advertised on his website and will eventually sell, at which point it will be replaced by another exotic he would like to own such as a Ferrari 599. Consequently, his collection is always in a state of flux and he never has time to get bored with a particular car, as another car will always be somewhere on the horizon.

I have come to see one of the more permanent cars in his collection and one of his favourites, a McLaren M6GT replica. “It’s not the fastest or most expensive car here,” says Andrew, “but it does get the most attention.”

Anybody who knows about cars will instantly recognise this car as being a replica of the McLaren M6GT, conceived by Bruce McLaren as having the potential to be the first road-legal McLaren supercar, conceived decades before the McLaren F1.

The original McLaren M6GT prototype was manufactured in aluminium. A mould was taken off this car and a further two bodies were manufactured by McLaren out of fibreglass. It is believed that another 100-plus bodies were commissioned and manufactured by Trojan, a small UK manufacturing company that built other McLaren bodies. The McLaren M6GT also came to be manufactured here.

McLaren Begat Montage

One of the two previously mentioned fibreglass cars went on tour to the US in the early ’70s where it was spotted by brothers Tim and Brad Lovette. At that time they were already making a replica kit of the McLaren M8 called the ‘Manta Mirage’. They asked if they could ‘borrow’ the M6GT for a while and the people responsible for touring the car agreed. It is not known if they knew the Lovette brothers were going to use it to make a mould but, in those days, second-hand race cars / prototypes had almost no value. Once they had made the mould Manta Cars introduced a new VW Beetle–based kit car called the ‘Manta Montage’.

It was a very successful entry-level kit car and sold well. One of these Montages became a star of the TV series Hardcastle and McCormick (1983–’86). No doubt having a Montage seen during the show’s opening credits performing stunts and high-speed chases helped sales. The highlight of each episode of the TV series involved a vehicle pursuit with the Coyote X (Manta Montage) chasing down bad guys attempting to escape in other sports cars. The show was similar in concept to the better known Knight Rider TV series (1982–’86) albeit not as high-tech.

Well-known New Zealand race car driver and designer Graham McRae visited Manta Cars in the US and brought an unfinished Montage back to New Zealand with him in the late 1970s. Always the entrepreneur, he had the idea of producing and selling the car here. He approached David Harrod of Fibreglass Developments Limited (FDL) in Feilding about the possibility of producing the car in his workshops.

Montage Begat Mararn

His timing was perfect because for some time David had been considering building a car and seriously contemplated building a Cobra replica but, thanks to Graham, he got side-tracked into building the (M6GT) Montage, which he called the ‘Mararn’. Working in his spare time it took David about a year to strip the car and get it to the point at which a set of moulds could be taken from it.

Along the way, several modifications were made. The original car had door handles on top of the door. These leaked and were perfectly sited to fill the door with water. David moved these to the side and fitted Leyland Marina units, which looked better than the originals. A big issue was the poorly functioning door hinges on the Montage. David set about making a complicated double-hinge system with two different opening pitches that used rose joints. The result was extremely tricky to develop and it would have sent volume manufacturers back to the drawing board but the final result on this already-special car was worth it.

A key problem was the car’s windscreen. At the time Pilkington Glass was manufacturing glass for the local automotive industry in Lower Hutt. David approached Pilkington with the windscreen that came with the car in the hope that the company could manufacture it and after some thought it said that it couldn’t and returned David’s windscreen, in pieces! David was not happy and demanded a meeting with the company board of directors. At that meeting David insisted that as the company had broken the only windscreen of its type in New Zealand, it was honour bound to replace it. Pilkington agreed, but it would take the company more than 100 attempts before it was able to manufacture a windscreen that David could use.

Meanwhile, Graham had been offered the opportunity to be the chief mechanic of the US Skoal Bandit Racing team owned by well-known actor and race car driver Paul Newman. Given such an opportunity, Graham was happy to sell out his share of the car to David.

The Correct Approach

Now that David owned the car fully, he decided to approach Ron Dennis — the recently appointed CEO of McLaren Racing — for the rights to build the car. Ron was pleasantly surprised that David had approached him, as Manta had never asked for McLaren’s permission. But his surprise did not extend as far as his wallet and he said that David could build the car if he paid McLaren a very large royalty with each car sold. This would have made the car uneconomic to build. A patent attorney was consulted, and he informed David that legally he would not be able to build the car until the 12-year patent held by McLaren Racing ran out.

With the rights still having a couple of years to run, the prototype was temporarily parked in a shed in the hope that McLaren would not renew the patent. It didn’t, so in 1981 FDL started advertising the car, now known as the ‘Mararn’, one week after McLaren’s patent ran out.

Steve Bond was employed solely to manage the car’s production, sales and advertising. He was given a budget and told that although making a profit would be nice it was not the be-all and end-all. David was more interested in the Mararn being a showpiece of what FDL could manufacture.

In 1982 with eight cars produced and sold, Steve Bond took on the role of overall manager. Of all the cars built only the first three were turnkey, the first two built on a VW Beetle chassis. The third body was mated to a specially designed spaceframe chassis with a mid-mounted Ford three-litre engine/Porsche five-speed gearbox and transaxle for good measure. A total of 37 cars were built by FDL, of which four went to Australia.

Repowered

The example featured in this article started life with a VW chassis and was road legal in 1986, complete with fake fur headlining and bright purple metallic paintwork. The beauty of a kit car is that any owner can modify it. When the second owner bought it, the car was powered by a Mazda rotary.

Not being fond of rotary engines in 2006 he got Fraser Cars to pluck it out and insert a Toyota MR2 subframe in its place. This they did very nicely by cutting off the rear of the VW floor pan and fitting a tubular spaceframe over the old chassis up to the front suspension to increase rigidity. The MR2 rear subframe, including the motor and five-speed gearbox with the coilover shocks, was bolted straight on to the new mount points. Andrew bought the car off the third owner Steve Clare in 2010. Steve had spent many hours tidying up the ripples on the body before painting it a more appropriate orange, manufactured and fitted the rear wing and the polycarbonate sweeping rear screen not available as part of the kit from either Manta or FDL.

After seeing it for sale, Andrew phoned Steve whose first question of Andrew was how tall was he? When Andrew replied he was 1.87m, Steve said that the car was not for him. However on seeing the car Andrew had to have it, and managing to squeeze himself in he declared it to be almost comfortable. During 12 years of ownership, Andrew has only driven the car about 650km. At the start of this year he swapped the engine out and replaced it with a fully reconditioned Celica 3S-GE two-litre engine.

These days he has resolved to drive it more frequently. The fascination other people have for the car never grows old; a group will always gather to admire the car whenever and wherever he parks it. Getting fuel is always an interesting experience and seeing people of all genders draping themselves across it for a photo opportunity is not an uncommon occurrence. Like the other cars in his collection the Mararn, although a favourite, is also for sale and should somebody be prepared to pay what he is asking for it Andrew and the Mararn will part company. Due to his interest in the New Zealand–manufactured car scene it will probably be replaced by another unique New Zealand car.