Stairway To Heaven

The car collection of McLaren racing CEO Zak Brown is absolutely jaw-dropping, and it’s kept in the same base as one of the world’s fastest-rising race teams

- Damien Smith

TO OUR LEFT sits Jody Scheckter’s history-making Wolf WR1 and an Alan Jones Williams FW07. Further down the line there’s a trio of McLarens, once driven by a clutch of Formula 1’s biggest beasts: Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen, Lewis Hamilton. Crikey. To the right sits a 1980s Indycar: wow, it’s Mario Andretti’s 1987 Lola, the one in which he should have won his second Indy 500. Next to it is Emerson Fittipaldi’s Penske PC18, the one in which he did win Indy. Then there’s Dan Gurney’s Can-Am McLaren M8D, a gorgeous Martini Lancia LC2 Group C and a Castrol IMSA Jaguar. We don’t know which way to look next.

Try the following row of race bays. A Lotus 79 stripped to its perfectly formed bare monocoque; then a Bobby Rahal Truesports March 84C, the one Adrian Newey designed, that looks more than a little tired. It’s a new project, apparently. And what’s that little old-fashioned go-kart? Ah, it’s Senna’s, the one in which he returned to karts to try to win the 1981 world championship in Parma. Of course it is.

Upstairs on the mezzanine there’s much more: single-seaters, tin-tops from around the world, obscurities and oddities. At some point we really should close our mouths. Zak Brown doesn’t exactly keep his collection a secret, but to see them all under one roof, displayed and maintained in the manner each deserves… this is one chunky slice of nirvana for anyone who, like Brown, grew up falling in love with motorsport in the 1970s and through to the ’90s. It’s almost as if he owns every racing car he ever had as a poster on his wall.