Book review: McLaren M23 Owners’ Workshop Manual by Ian Wagstaff

McLaren and Danny Ric’s win at Monza was well overdue for long suffering McLaren fans. The MCL35 is starting to show encouraging signs and joins the list of race winning McLaren grand prix cars that hopefully can emulate the success and longevity of one of McLaren’s famous world championship chassis, the M23. The M23 of course powered Emerson Fittipaldi to his 1974 title and James Hunt to the 1976 crown. One of the dedicated books on the M23 is the Haynes Owners’ Workshop Manual by Ian Wagstaff published in 2013.

The book is structured into 6 chapters which roughly follows the same structure as the other books in the Haynes F1 car series:

• The first chapter starts with the history of the M23 from 1973 to 1976
• anatomy of the M23 (including cockpit, airbox, brakes, engine, gearbox and suspension)
• drivers’ recollections (including Emerson Fittpaldi, Jody Scheckter and Jochen Mass), McLaren mechanics views (including Alastair Caldwell and Gary Anderson)
• restoration and historic racing of the M23 (how to buy, insure, restore and where to race it)
• back sections trace the evolution of M23 chassis numbers and also privateer racing of the M23 in F1 (covering BS Fabrications and Melchester Racing) and statistics tables.

Like other books in this series, there is plenty of B&W and colour photography of the car in action and disassembled in the garage.

Sprinkled throughout the book, the author has also included reproduction of various memorabilia like old engineering notes and GP guides.

There’s probably more emphasis in this book on documenting  the chassis history of the M23 and where these chassis are now kept and owned by private collectors. The M23 was also raced in other series and even in Can Am racing – all this covered by Wagstaff and racing history statistics are also included.

Within this series, I probably prefer the Steve Rendle authored books as the anatomy of the car chapter is much longer and detailed. That said, if you’re a genuine private race car collector the rear section of this book will probably be of interest.

Wow factor/money shot: Scheckter’s damaged M23 sidepod after 1973 British GP

Suitable for: McLaren fans