McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand, to Les and Ruth McLaren. Diagnosed with Legg–Calvé–Perthes disease as a nine-year-old, he spent nearly three years in hospital and was left with a permanent limp and one leg shorter than the other. The experience did not diminish his passion for motorsport: his parents ran a service station and workshop in Remuera, and McLaren spent his formative years around engines and cars.
At fourteen he persuaded his father to restore a 1929 Austin 7 Ulster with him, which he drove at local hillclimbs. After attending Seddon Memorial Technical College he enrolled in engineering at the University of Auckland before dropping out to focus on racing. He progressed from the Austin 7 to a Ford 10 special, an Austin-Healey, and ultimately a Cooper–Climax Formula Two car. His domestic results secured him a place in New Zealand's "Driver to Europe" programme, which brought him to the international stage in 1958.
McLaren made his Formula One debut at the 1958 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. He joined the Cooper works team for 1959, partnering Jack Brabham during the team's dominant rear-engined era. At the 1959 United States Grand Prix at Sebring, McLaren won his first World Championship race at 22 years and 104 days old, holding the record as Formula One's youngest race winner for over four decades.
He opened the 1960 season with victory at the Argentine Grand Prix and remained a consistent front-runner, finishing second in the championship behind Brabham. When Brabham departed Cooper at the end of 1961 to form his own team, McLaren assumed the lead driver role and took victory at the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix. Across his Formula One career, he recorded four wins, 27 podiums, and three fastest laps in 100 starts.
McLaren founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd. in 1963, initially running modified Coopers in the Tasman Series before entering Formula One as a constructor in 1966. Early cars, including the M2B, struggled with heavy, underpowered engines. The team's fortunes transformed with the adoption of the Cosworth DFV. McLaren took the team's first Formula One victory at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in the McLaren M7A, making him one of only three drivers — alongside Jack Brabham and Dan Gurney — to win a World Championship race in a car of their own construction. The 1969 season saw McLaren finish third in the drivers' standings, and he increasingly shifted his focus toward team management and engineering development.
McLaren pursued an active parallel career in endurance racing. His landmark result came at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, which he won with Chris Amon driving a 7.0-litre Ford GT40 Mk II. Ford management had requested a staged dead-heat finish among their leading cars; race officials ultimately awarded the victory to McLaren and Amon on the basis that, having started further back on the grid, they had covered a marginally greater distance than the sister car of Ken Miles and Denny Hulme.
McLaren's greatest competitive success came in the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, a Group 7 sports car series with minimal restrictions. In 1967 the team introduced the McLaren M6A, a purpose-built monocoque chassis finished in the team's signature Papaya Orange livery and powered by large-displacement Chevrolet V8 engines. The car won five of six races, and McLaren took the drivers' title. In 1969, driving the McLaren M8B, McLaren and teammate Denny Hulme swept all eleven races on the calendar — a performance that earned the series the nickname the "Bruce and Denny Show." McLaren secured his second Can-Am championship that year.
McLaren was noted for strong mechanical sympathy and an instinctive grasp of chassis behaviour. His driving style emphasised consistency and the preservation of machinery over outright pace. He played a hands-on role in testing and development, translating precise feedback into engineering solutions, and this dual identity as driver and engineer defined both his personal career and his team's culture.
On 2 June 1970, McLaren was killed while testing a McLaren M8D Can-Am car at Goodwood Circuit in West Sussex. Travelling at an estimated 170 miles per hour along the Lavant Straight, the rear bodywork separated from the chassis. The sudden loss of downforce destabilised the car, which spun off the track and struck a concrete structure used as a flag station. McLaren died instantly. He was buried at Waikumete Cemetery in Glen Eden, Auckland.
The team McLaren founded in 1963 continued after his death, going on to win ten World Constructors' Championships and thirteen Drivers' Championships in Formula One. McLaren was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1995. In 2015, Taupō Motorsport Park in New Zealand was renamed Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park. A scholarship in his name, established in 2000 by Motorsport NZ and the Prodrive Trust, continues to support emerging New Zealand racing drivers.
His 1964 book From the Cockpit contained what became a widely quoted reflection: "To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone."