Here’s how to spec your McLaren Elva

By topgear, 13 March 2020

The McLaren Elva is a 804bhp, roofless, windscreenless supercar. It already belongs in the top one per cent of stunning and striking road cars. So, just how on earth do you improve it?

Well, McLaren’s Special Ops team seem to have found the answer. This is the ‘Elva M1A Theme by MSO’.

The M1A was one of Bruce McLaren’s fantastically quick 1960s racers, and customer interest was so strong that he teamed up with the small Bexhill-based company Elva to ramp up production. Hence the name of the modern-day speedster.

One of those M1As was driven by Bruce at the Canadian Sports Car Grand Prix in 1964, and that’s the one which has been recreated here. With his iconic number 4 and a bare carbon body, this is almost certainly the best-specced Elva we’ve seen so far.

That silver racing stripe along the sills and bonnet is beautifully retro, and the red pinstriping works very nicely indeed.

Presumably there will only be one example of the Elva M1A Theme, and presumably someone has already snapped it up. Still as long as they drive it and we can all look at it, that’s good enough for us…

STORY Greg Potts

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