LOOKING BACK: The "ghost" of New Zealand's Bruce McLaren walks the Goodwood track after his death in a scene from the first of three video clips marking McLaren's 50th anniversary.

Bruce McLaren's "ghost" gets to revisit the crash site where he died 43 years ago in the first of three specially commissioned films from the company as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.

Instead of focusing on the high-tech, high-octane world of the company's Formula 1 team, or even its new automotive division, the first of three short films - it's called Courage - sheds light in a poignant human back-story – namely that of New Zealand's Bruce McLaren, who founded the racing team 50 years ago.

Leading Swedish music-video maker Marcus Soderlund produced the clip which follows the ghost of Bruce McLaren as he retraces the scene of his crash at the Goodwood circuit in 1970 – the crash that took his life at the tragically young age of 32.

Soderlund said "this is Bruce McLaren's film.

"I love that Bruce McLaren is revisiting his crash-site, like an angel from a Frank Capra movie.

"The script for this film made me shiver and I wanted to recreate that feeling. I wanted to fill the film with emotions. I am obsessed with gestures. These things that reveal who we are and the physical spaces that we inhabit.

"Films can change the way you look at the world by showing you how another person sees it. This is how I imagine that Bruce McLaren looked at the world."

The clip is accompanied by a Bruce McLaren monologue, ending poignantly with the words: "...What might be seen as a tragic end was in fact a beginning. As I always said, to do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. Indeed, life is not measured in years alone but in achievement...''