McLaren's Mike Flewitt is still in love with Lotus

Mike Flewitt at the wheel of his 1963 Lotus Elan, a road car he converted to Lotus' own race specification. He owns another two Elans for road use.

Photo credit: PATRICK GOSLING

Mike Flewitt is four years into a racing passion sparked by his love of what many believe is one of the greatest sports cars ever made: the 1960s Lotus Elan.

Flewitt leads the supercar arm of McLaren, Formula One's legendary U.K. team, but retains a lifelong admiration for Lotus in its glory years.

"My young man's dream was to run Lotus," Flewitt, 56, told Automotive News.

The Elan, a quintessential British sports car, is often cited as the inspiration for the original Mazda MX-5. Flewitt bought his first in his mid-20s and now has three.

He was content with road-driving them until he spotted a piece of paper at a classic car show that led him down a wormhole so deep that he came out the other side a racing driver.

It was an original letter Lotus sent to dealers in January 1964 saying the company knew the Elan wasn't designed as a race car, but it had had a lot of interest and if anyone did want to convert an Elan, here's the recommended specification.

It's important to point out here that Flewitt is a pedant for originality when it comes to his Elans.

"My brief is always that I want them as they drove out of the factory," he says.

But he's also a sucker for a project.

I decided OK, for my next car, I'm going to find an Elan pre that date in January 1964 and build it to that specification," he says. "But once I built a racing car I thought I may as well take it testing, and once I'd taken it testing, I thought I may as well go racing, which meant I needed to get a race license … "

That was four years ago, and Flewitt now races the car with his Swedish wife, Mia, in the U.K.'s Classic Sports Car Club Classic K series, named for the FIA Appendix K that restricts cars to period-correct modifications.

Flewitt admits to not being the most competitive racer.

"I'm not competitive other than with myself, so I always look at the data from the last time I was at that track," he says. "I'm less bothered about where I finish."

In fact, he's probably more competitive about the authenticity.

"My definition of best is being period correct. No one can look at my car and say, 'Oh, they didn't do that in those days,' because actually I beg to differ. I spent the last 30 years reading about Lotuses, and I've got a pretty good idea what they did do," he says.

He's a great admirer of Lotus's inspirational founder Colin Chapman, who like McLaren eventually did, sold road cars to fund racing. He draws comparisons between Chapman and McLaren's founder, Bruce McLaren.

"Both were accomplished racers. Both were brilliant engineers — Colin was probably one of the finest engineers in sports cars ever — and both were entrepreneurial businessmen," he says.

Although Flewitt is arguably most responsible for McLaren Automotive's seven-year reinvention into Britain's Ferrari, he's more modest when asked to compare himself to Chapman or McLaren.

"Bruce McLaren would be three different people today. Somebody designing the car, somebody driving the car and somebody running the business. I'm definitely not the driver or the designer in that sense. My strengths are in production and business," he says.

Flewitt joined McLaren in 2012 from Ford, where he rose to head of manufacturing for Europe, and his methodical approach has led to consistent profitability — something Chapman's business methods failed to do at Lotus.

Flewitt's goals for McLaren's road cars aren't far removed from those of Chapman's, even if the price is far higher.

"Our goal is simply to make the best driving cars in their segment, and it's a very honest goal. It's what we really believe in," he says.

His passion for sports cars and for racing them makes him highly effective talking to owners at the increasing number of customer events McLaren stages.

"When I'm not doing it for work I'm doing it as a hobby. I think that gives a level of credibility to me and to the business," he says.

The success of its track days globally led to McLaren creating its own race series, designed for the 570S GT4. So far he is resisting the urge to join in.

"I would love to, but I don't feel I can really. These are customer events and when I go to customer events I'm working."

He did buy a car for his wife, though, who showed no nervousness moving from a 1960s Elan 1.6 to a 2019 3.8-liter V-8 McLaren at the year's first race at Spa, Belgium.

"Somewhat to my embarrassment, my wife went out and won both races," he says.

Flewitt has moved far beyond the dreams of that Lotus-obsessed 25-year-old wanting to run the company. "I never thought it would come true," he says. "Actually, I've ended up with a better option at the end of the day."

You can reach Nick Gibbs at ngibbs@crain.com.