This young engineer is following Bruce McLaren’s footsteps

A dream come true, right? Plucked out of university in Auckland, New Zealand and flown nearly 12,000 miles to come and work for arguably the most interesting sports car maker in the world right now.

That’s what the Bruce McLaren International Internship does, though, whisking young New Zealanders to Woking for a few months to give them a taste of working for McLaren.

It’s all inspired by Bruce himself, who got his big break via a ‘Driver to Europe’ scholarship that boosted his motorsport career and ultimately led to the creation of the company now making mad supercars like the Senna.

McLaren’s internship scheme doesn’t focus on drivers, but engineers, and Thomas Evans is the second University of Auckland engineering student to be cherry picked by the Woking supercar maker to come and work in Surrey for a few months.

Evans was actually born in England, but grew up in Whangaparaoa, right near the top of New Zealand’s north island. Very, very far from Woking. And most of the time, much, much warmer.

That doesn’t quell his excitement, though. “Automotive engineering is a field that is very hard to get into,” he says, “so to get an opportunity like this with McLaren is amazing and not something I ever dared dream would be possible. I am excited to get to McLaren, meet the people and get started!”

And you would be too, right?