London-based design studio INK has unveiled the McLaren M6GT as the newest addition to their longstanding Plainbodies series. Titled ‘Bruce’s Unfinished Masterpiece’ in honour of Bruce McLaren, the founder of McLaren, the M6GT is the latest race car to be stripped bare in INK’s signature minimalistic aesthetic. INK’s commemoration of McLaren’s vision revives the lost history of a car that almost slipped into obscurity.

An homage to speed and form in the purest sense, the Plainbodies series takes historical race cars and peels away their classic liveries to reveal the practical beauty in the bodies underneath. Rendered in white, the McLaren M6GT is the latest to join a line-up that includes the Ferrari 250 GTO, Ferrari 330 P4, Ford GT40, Jaguar D-Type, Porsche 917 and Porsche 959, to name a few.

Bruce McLaren, pioneering race car driver, designer, and engineer, began to conceive of the M6GT in the late 1960s, imagining it as the fastest road car in existence. Bruce McLaren’s vision for the M6GT is the genesis for all McLaren road cars. Based on the latest race technology, the M6GT was superlight, blistering quick, confidence inspiring and safe, and continues to define the McLaren brand today.

In 1969, new manufacturing regulations required McLaren to build 50 identical models of the M6GT car, a requirement that McLaren could not meet at the time. This rule would ultimately doom the M6GT, leaving it confined to the pages of history as an unfinished masterpiece.

Unfortunately, just one year later in 1970, Bruce McLaren passed away and his vision for the M6GT died with him. His legacy lived on through a race-spec prototype, the OBH 500H, which continues to tell the story of McLaren's innovative ambition to race at Le Mans and deliver a road-legal supercar only a few years after the establishment of his company.

Bruce’s unfinished masterpiece