McLaren Special Operations, the bespoke division of McLaren Automotive, went back into the company’s heritage to create a unique color with a family story attached. ‘Muriwai’ refers to different episodes of the McLaren story: it is the name of the New Zealand costal community where McLaren founder Bruce McLaren won his first motor race at the age of 15; it is also the name he gave to his family house in Surrey, England and it is now the name of a new special paint color in the McLaren Special Operations catalogue for the recently launched 570S Spider.

Inspired by the whitewashed walls, deep blue doors and shutters of the handsome McLaren homestead, Muriwai White paint is white with blue flecks. The color was developed by McLaren Special Operations, Amanda McLaren, Bruce’s only child and a brand ambassador for McLaren Automotive and McLaren paint partner AkzoNobel.  Amanda returned to her childhood home in the first 570S Spider to be finished in Muriwai White, recalling the importance of the house that shared the same name.

“My mother Patty had been at a dinner party with a palm reader, who told her she’d live in a big white house with blue doors and shutters,” revealed Amanda. “Whether by destiny or design, that is what transpired and Muriwai was a place of pride for Bruce and comfort to Patty years after my father’s premature death in 1970 at the age of 32.  Muriwai was always special to my father; the exotic name as much as the house. Forty-two kilometres’ northwest of Auckland, it’s where he grew up and won his first hill climb, aged 15, at the wheel of an Ulster Austin which remains in McLaren’s heritage collection in Woking. McLaren.