McLaren’s space-age temple of motorsport finally opens its doors

Woking, a commuter town 20 miles southwest of London, has never been top of anyone’s list of dream destinations. The poor relation to nearby Guildford, its claims to fame include the UK’s largest cemetery (not to mention the country’s first purpose-built crematorium), a football team that once made it to the fourth round of the FA Cup, and a branch of PizzaExpress that featured as a punchline in a royal scandal. Recently, the always unattractive town centre has been further blighted by three huge and inappropriate skyscrapers (the weirdly textured yellow one known locally as “the Fish Finger”), the result of a delusional project by Conservative councillors that has racked up debts of nearly £2bn. I can be rude — it’s my home town.

There is one place in Woking, however, that, in embodying glamour, excitement and the pursuit of excellence, goes deeply against the grain. Hidden away among woods and heathland on the edge of town is the headquarters of the Formula 1 team McLaren. Seen from the air, the McLaren Technology Centre resembles a yin-yang, one side the futuristic steel and glass building, the other an artificial lake (whose water helps cool the whole facility).

A public footpath passes within 150m of the lake — I’ve often walked past and marvelled at the space-age interloper on what was previously a slightly scrappy farm producing vegetables and, at one stage, ostriches. Designed by Norman Foster and opened by the Queen in 2004, the building’s sparkling facade curves around the lake and is reflected in it; the edge of the overhanging roof is rounded like the leading edge of an aircraft wing.

But that view from the footpath, albeit unobstructed by any visible fences or signs of security, was as close as members of the public could get. Ron Dennis, who took McLaren to seven of its eight F1 constructors’ championships and 10 of its 12 drivers’ championships during his 35 years in charge, was always keen to maintain the exclusivity and mystique of the building, using it to dazzle commercial partners and VIP guests, and to reward those who had bought a McLaren supercar by letting them come to the facility to collect it in person. A public museum that was part of the original planning application never materialised.

Now, finally, there has been a change of heart. Starting next month, McLaren will offer regular public tours for the first time, the result of a collaboration with GetYourGuide, a German-based online platform that offers some 75,000 experiences worldwide. Among them are many that offer some form of special access — jumping the queue, say, or visiting after hours.

I’ve seen grown men and women reduced to tears when they walk through those doors!

One is to tour the Vatican with its head clavigero, or key-keeper, opening up the galleries first thing in the morning, including unlocking the door of the Sistine Chapel and turning on the lights. It reports soaring demand for sports-based experiences, and McLaren’s inner sanctum “is like the Sistine Chapel of motorsport,” says Jean-Gabriel Duveau of GetYourGuide.

I joined a preview last week, being picked up in a minibus from the security gatepost, then driven slowly along a narrow road that follows the curving outside edge of the lake, as though everyone in the building is being given a chance to scrutinise the interloper to their high-tech hide-out. Forget revving engines and oil spills, inside everything is hushed, spotless and colour-co-ordinated in silver, white and grey. Dennis liked to describe it as “90% Nasa, 10% Disneyland” (which perhaps explains why it doubled for Coruscant Spaceport in the Star Wars series Andor).

After a grand introduction (“I’ve seen grown men and women reduced to tears when they walk through those doors!” says our guide, Kris Lawton), we descend in a circular glass lift apparently intended to mimic an engine’s piston, then enter the Boulevard, a flowing double-height space that extends the length of the building and is filled with a greatest hits of McLaren cars.

First, though, comes the one non-McLaren in the building, a tiny 1929 Austin 7 bought in pieces at the start of the 1950s by New Zealander Les McLaren. He was intending to rebuild the car and sell it for a profit but his son Bruce convinced him to keep it and use it for racing. Together they tuned it to raise the top speed to 87mph and Bruce learned to drive in it, on a makeshift circuit marked out in the family’s orchard. When Les was unable to take part in a race due to gallstones, his 15-year-old son took his place, and won.

Bruce went on to become a professional driver and engineer, came to Europe aged 20 and founded the company in 1963. Beyond the Austin, numerous F1 cars and a handful of road-going supercars mark out the next 60 years — from the muscular 1972 M19C-1 in Yardley McLaren colours, to cars that won championships for Alain Prost, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton (there’s even one made of 468,000 pieces of Lego).

While cooing over the cars, we are warned not to photograph what is happening in the glass-walled rooms behind us. In one, the latest models are being stripped down in preparation for being shipped to Canada for this weekend’s race. In another, engineers are moulding carbon to create updated parts they hope will give the cars an edge over rivals. Rather than robots and computers, it is surprisingly hands-on, the experience like watching chefs in a Michelin-starred show kitchen.

Of course, while performance and technology have always been part of motorsport’s allure, so too have the human stories, and to put it bluntly, the danger. Close to the Austin 7 we see a 1970 M8D, a Can Am car with swooping bodywork in bright “papaya orange” colourscheme (which McLaren hoped would stand out on black-and-white television screens). This is the sister car to the one a 32-year-old Bruce McLaren was testing at Goodwood in June 1970 when the rear bodywork detached, spinning the car out of control into a trackside building and killing him. Nearby is the MP4/8 in which Ayrton Senna won his final victory, at the 1993 Adelaide Grand Prix. Six months later he was killed in a crash at Imola.

Since 1992, McLaren has made cars for the road as well as the track, and the tour continues past what it says is the world’s largest collection of motorsport trophies (filling cabinets outside the staff restaurant), through an underground tunnel to the McLaren Production Centre, completed in 2011. A white sliding door is pulled back and we find ourselves on a balcony overlooking the 34,500 square-metre factory floor, where engineers are busy on lines of supercars in numerous bright shades. Once complete, the cars are moved to the “monsoon test” booth, where they are drenched in 1,000 litres of water per minute.

For F1 fans, supercar buffs and lovers of Top Gear, it is all, to borrow a Clarksonism, quite pant-wettingly exciting. What, though, do McLaren get from allowing groups of up to 20 punters to traipse though its temple nine times a year? “When Zak Brown came in as chief executive [in 2018], he looked at the business and thought ‘how can we make it more inclusive?’” says Lindsey Eckhouse, McLaren’s director of licensing. The success of the Netflix series Drive to Survive has created booming interest in the sport — McLaren claim 470mn fans worldwide. “We try to use our digital channels to unlock what happens here,” says Eckhouse. “This is just one stage further.”

Quite how “inclusive” a tour can be when it costs £450 for 90 minutes (plus another 90 minutes for lunch on site), is up for debate. What is certain is that for a large number of people, for the first time ever, an afternoon in Woking will be a bucket-list experience. I wonder what they’ll make of the Fish Finger.