Martin Slater came to motorsport design through a progression of junior categories, having built and raced his own cars before taking on designer roles at established constructors Lola, Brabham, and March. In 1971 he built a car for the British Formula Atlantic Championship, launching a lineage of machines that demonstrated his engineering capability. The most successful of these early designs was the Lyncar 005, with which McLaren engine-builder and amateur racer John Nicholson won the British Formula Atlantic Championship in both 1973 and 1974.
Buoyed by success in Formula Atlantic, Nicholson commissioned a Formula One chassis from Slater. By this period Nicholson had established his own engine-building business, which limited the time he could dedicate to a full Grand Prix season. Rather than mounting a complete campaign, he targeted non-championship events and the British Grand Prix specifically.
The team entered the 1974 British Grand Prix and returned for the 1975 edition at Silverstone. At the 1975 race Nicholson qualified the car and competed in the race proper, ultimately being classified 17th — five laps behind the race leader — after crashing during the heavy storm that struck toward the end of the event. The result reflected the chaotic conditions rather than any fundamental failing of the car, and classification itself stood as an achievement for a privateer outfit of Lyncar's modest scale.
After the Formula One programme concluded, the car was updated and entered for Spanish driver Emilio de Villota in the Shellsport International Series, a British domestic single-seater series for Formula One cars. The Lyncar won a round at Mallory Park in 1977 under de Villota, demonstrating the chassis still had competitive life at club racing level.
Slater later accepted a commission in 1983 from Greek racing driver Costas Los to build a car for the Group C2 class of the World Sportscar Championship. This machine, designated the MS83, was fitted initially with a Brian Hart 420R two-litre engine before Los acquired a Cosworth DFV unit that had been prepared by Nicholson's engine business. The MS83 contested several rounds of the 1984 World Sportscar Championship season without achieving a classified finish, although it was set to finish second in class at the 1984 1000 km of Brands Hatch before being disqualified for its final lap taking too long.
Lyncar represents the quintessential British privateer constructor of the 1970s: a talented individual designer operating at the margin of Formula One, making an occasional appearance at the home Grand Prix without the resources to sustain a full championship campaign. The team's Atlantic-championship success showed Slater's ability as a designer, and the Formula One attempt, modest as it was, placed Lyncar in the record books as an official constructor. The subsequent adaptation of the car for domestic series use underlined the practicality-driven approach typical of small constructors of the era.