1974 McLaren M16: Designed Beside a British Airport Runway, It Won the Indy 500 Three Times

In May 1974, Johnny Rutherford won the Indianapolis 500 in a car designed in a factory beside a runway on the edge of London. This is the full story of the McLaren M16: the wedge Gordon Coppuck drew after studying the Lotus 72, the rear wing folded into the engine cover that quietly skirted the rules, the American Offenhauser turbo it borrowed from the very establishment it beat, Roger Penske crossing the Atlantic because no American car was good enough, and the three Indy 500s in five years that ended half a century of certainty about who builds the fastest cars at the Brickyard. Subscribe for more stories the big teams would rather stay buried.