Brutal but beautiful, the McLaren M7C was an archetypal iteration of the brief-flowering late-’60s genre of high-winged F1 cars.
It appeared, in all its papaya-orange, aero-tricked glory, on the Thursday of the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix: where better to reap the downforce benefits of twin wings mounted four feet or so above the monocoque, acting directly on the suspension? And these in addition to the obligatory winglets on either side of the nosecone. Drag be damned, team founder Bruce McLaren, who had co-authored the tech spec, would have his car veritably painted to the Riviera Tarmac.
Except governing body, the CSI, didn’t quite see it that way: they deemed the front wing potentially lethal – “C’est une guillotine!” – and it was banned. Indeed, wings of any kind were banned…
