McLaren Automotive is a vehicle manufacturer that has proven itself over the past few years as a genuine competitor in the supercar and hypercar race, all from its HQ in the United Kingdom.
If you're familiar with the history of Bruce McLaren, you'd know that this brand has strong Kiwi roots, after McLaren himself formed the Formula One team that started it all, way back in 1963.
While most fans of McLaren this side of the Tasman love to claim that that the logo was derived from the original 'Speedy Kiwi' logo, but McLaren affirms that it instead represents "the vorticies created by the our rear wings."
Either way, McLaren might not celebrate its Kiwi heritage through the logo, but instead through an internship programme that was started in honour of the late Bruce McLaren, and regularly picks up Kiwi engineering students.
Elizabeth Grant and Harvey Merton are the two latest students from the University of Auckland to take internships over at the McLaren Automotive HQ in Woking, Surrey, England.
Harvey and Elizabeth are both engineering students with a passion for high-performance cars, and are set to spend the next two months working alongside designers and development engineers and the Technology and Production Centres.
"It's wonderful to welcome Elizabeth and Harvey to McLaren as the latest bright young engineers to benefit from the international internship named in honour of my father and to know his legacy lives on today both in the cars and the ethos of the company," said Amanda McLaren, Bruce's daughter.
"My father would be very proud of what McLaren has become today and I’m sure he would be equally proud of the internship which celebrates the strong links between Britain and New Zealand that he epitomised.
"I’m grateful to both McLaren Automotive and the University of Auckland for their continued support for nurturing young engineering talent and can’t wait to hear what Elizabeth and Harvey make of it all," the McLaren ambassador added.
Given the pace at which McLaren are pumping out supercars these days, both Harvey and Elizabeth are going to have their work cut out for them over the next couple of months.
Right after the brand released its first entry into the GT world, it announced the Elva, and windscreen-less speedster that celebrates the McLaren M1A that Bruce designed back in 1964.