In November
1964 the MA went into production as the McLaren Elva Mark 1.
Work began immediately on 24 customer M1As in order to have a
car on display at the London Racing Car Show in January 1965.
The M1A in
the Mathews Collection is the first of the Elva built cars, chassis
20-01, and is the car that premiered at the London Racing Car
Show as the first McLaren customer car the world had ever seen.
The car was then bought by John Coombs, a Jaguar dealer in England,
for Graham Hill to drive. After the L.A. Times Grand Prix in
October 1965, John Coombs sold the car to Jerry Entin, a California
racer. The M1A's new owner landed it a part in the movie Spinout,
in which Elvis Presley drove the car.
After I bought
the car my first race was in Las Vegas (Stardust) . Picture below
is at that race. My Brother Hershey is by my side in the sport
shirt.
Photos above
& below from Jerry Entin
While I owned
it the car was a dull gray. I had an Olds engine and a Hewland
HD gearbox. I got it in the Elvis movie through my friend Bruce
Kessler. He was the second unit director. They painted it a kind
of gold. Harry Mathews bought it 10 years later from a fellow
named Dick McGovern.
In 2000 Harry
took it to the Goodwood Reunion. Harry was honored to have Lord
Charles March, the host of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, at
the wheel of the Mathews Collection's historic McLaren Elva M1A.
Photos above
& below from the Mathews Collection site