Features

McLaren on the School Run

The phrase I hear most often when my job comes up inconversation – aside from questions about the best car I’ve driven and what car I’d recommend to them – is something along the lines of how great a job that must be. The most recent example came from the headteacher at my youngest daughter’s primary school.

As the end of the school year approached and the Year 6s were about to leave for secondary – soon to make the major life choices on what they want to be when they’re older – the school was holding a careers week. It would involve parents, and some ex-pupils, coming to the school with any time they had to spare, to talk to children of all ages about their jobs: the good, the bad, how they got there, and how the children themselves could tread the same path.

Having previously worked in schools myself I thought it might be a fun day, so I volunteered my time. However, I couldn’t very well turn up to talk about how great it is to drive cars for a living without bringing something flashy.

A few years back I accidentally won a supercar for a weekend. With apologies to my subsequent friend and colleague Sean Ward of the Southern Group, I set the fastest time on a racing game simulator during a UK-wide event staged by McLaren – not knowing that the prize was a 570S for a weekend. I did it again a couple of years later, although deliberately this time.

Faces have changed a little since then – Wayne Bruce was PR chief at McLaren at the time. He’s now at Bentley where I had the good fortune to catch up with him last year as Crewe hosted our January meeting, but McLaren’s press office was happy to help out with a week’s loan
of a 720S for such a worthy event.

I thought I was quite happy with that outcome, but the headteacher was overjoyed and gave me top billing for the day – above the firefighters, police officers, doctor, nurse, and midwife. No pressure.

As it was a nice, dry day, we put the McLaren onto the sports field, allowing the kids to come out in groups to have a look – and one or two chances to sit in it, if they could beat the teachers and staff to it. The older groups had to deal with a short presentation from me beforehand, about the pros and cons of the job and how it could be something they could do in the future.

I was surprised by how engaged the kids were too. A lot of them had questions, mostly about my experiences: how fast had I driven; what’s the most expensive car I’ve been in; had I ever crashed a car; who’s the most famous person I’ve interviewed? Plenty of questions too about the 720S – vital statistics aside, there’s not much a kid loves more on a supercar than doors that go up!

For those of us with school-age children, it’s something I can heartily recommend, particularly as we’re often told youngsters are less and less interested in cars and driving. I can tell you that the shouts to rev it as I left the car park, and the comments my daughter got when she got into it say otherwise – not to mention the cool dad points!

Originally published in the Summer 2023 Newsletter.