You won’t believe what’s hidden in this secret warehouse: The staggering collection of iconic McLaren F1 cars!

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But its history goes back much further than that, as far back as 1963, when Bruce McLaren founded the team. During that 60-year period, they have won 20 world titles and 183 Grands Prix, making them one of the most decorated and at times dominant teams in the sport.

They have tasted success in other motorsports as well, winning the Indy 500 three times and the world famous Le Mans 24 hour endurance race on their first attempt. By winning those two landmark events and the Monaco Grand Prix, F1’s crown jewel, they are the only F1 team in history to win the Triple Crown of motorsport.

Six decades of racing have seen the production of a huge variety of racing machinery, broken down into millions of car parts, thousands of car design drawings and hundreds of racing suits.

Some of those bits have been sold, some have been given to major stakeholders, some have been donated to charity. But a large part of them are stored in a secret place in Woking.

His old boss, Ron Dennis, never wanted to throw anything away. He wanted to keep everything and hated waste. As a result, at least one of every part made during his time in charge, between 1980 and 2017, is under McLaren’s roof. Those parts help tell the story of the team’s impressive life in F1 through several generations.

Walking into the main room, you’re greeted by a massive three-story bookcase housing some McLaren classics, from Hakkinen’s 1998 winning MP4-13 to the orange livery they tested but never raced in 1997.

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Tucked away at the back of the corner, with a laminated A4 ‘do not remove’ sign pasted above, are the four tyres, stacked one on top of the other, which Hamilton used for his last lapfinal corner pass on Toyota’s Timo Glock at Brazil’s Interlagos track to win the first of his seven world titles.

Elsewhere, he finds a steering wheel, and associated cables and working kit, used by Pedro de la Rosa in 2008, meticulously arranged on a table.

Are you looking for a missing piece? Turn left and you have shelves storing hundreds of tubes with original drawings of various part designs. Not there? Power up one of the many laptops, from slim new machines to chunky floppy-powered relics, scattered around the warehouse with the requisite power cords.

These are frequent calls to action; this building is not just a storage block, but also a workshop, staffed by eight technicians who work on cars from their own collection or from private collectors.

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While I was there, they had Emerson Fittipaldi’s 1974 World Championship-winning M23 in the stands so they could prepare it for a race at Goodwood next month (that’s one of 13 McLarens that will be in action at the famous motorsport meeting, as part of the team’s year-long 60th anniversary celebrations).

The iconic MP4-4 that won 15 of the 16 races in 1988, and attracted the attention of Jenson Button and Hamilton when they visited a few years ago, was also undergoing a facelift.

The Crown Prince of Bahrain has one of the MP4-23s, which Hamilton used to win the 2008 title, stored in his private collection, but he sent it to McLaren Heritage so they could get it running again ahead of a test drive.

Next to it is a Kimi Raikkonen car owned by a private collector. The fuel bag is all that needs to be changed before it is ready to fire and sent for testing before being returned to the customer.

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If they don’t have a part in stock, they consult the blueprints and build them, either in-house at McLaren’s Technology Centre, home to their F1 team, or through a third-party contractor.

If they’re not sure what they need to fix it, and can’t find the answer on drawings or computers, they have to rely on memory, which is where the experience of those who work there becomes invaluable. Hughie Absalom, for example, worked on one of the Indy 500 winners and drew on his memory and images to complete the reconstruction.

Among the octet working there is Gary Wheeler, a senior associate and heritage construction technician who worked with Ayrton Senna. He tells a story of how, during his time at Lotus, he caught the three-time world champion hiding when he was supposed to attend a media event. “I told him: ‘I won’t say anything, but if you come to McLaren, make sure it’s in your car,’” he tells me.

“Apparently, before he put pen to paper, he asked that I be in his car. Ron replied that ‘we choose who works on which car’. Dave Ryan, who was our team manager, was in the room.

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“He came out and asked me, ‘So what makes you so special?’ explaining that Ayrton had requested [for me to work on his car]. I said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He said: ‘Ayrton wanted you in his car.’ Lucky for you, we decided you were going to go in his car anyway!’”

It is those personal memories, along with priceless pieces of memorabilia from six decades in Formula 1, that tell the true story of McLaren. “You care about the cars,” says Indy Lall, manager of McLaren Heritage. “There is a meaning behind why we have each and every one of them.”

McLaren COO Piers Thynne adds: “The depth of the people who work there, their experiences and technical knowledge, is a fantastic part of our business and very important to keep it alive. It’s important to keep cars alive not just as working assets, but as a really important part of our history.”

Having spent several years in storage, the plan is for most of the cars, and many of the spare parts, from sidepods to engine covers, front noses and tailfins, to return to MTC and be on display at all its splendor.

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“It’s important that we display vehicles around us to remind everyone that we have a long history,” adds Thynne. “Any inspiration you might need beyond what we do on a day-to-day basis, you can see it on your way to lunch or when you go for a cup of tea.”

As offices go, McLaren’s, already quite special, with its boulevard lined with cars from generation to generation, is about to get even cooler.