in 1973 the manager for Led Zeppelin met with the owner of a Can Am McLaren M8, in the Playboy Club of London, and signed a deal to sponsor the car, painted in album cover art for the 1974 season

That Zeppelin would sponsor a race car won't seem as odd if you recall that the drummer raced an AA Fuel dragster at Santa Pod.

Grant invited Led Zeppelin to attend a cocktail party at the Playboy Club in London, where they were to meet a racecar driver named Kaye Griffiths. A Brit who campaigned in the Interserie, Europe’s version of Can-Am (the unlimited engine-displacement series that fielded history’s most powerful racecars), Griffiths had recently purchased a used McLaren M8E that was factory-converted to M8D-style bodywork. His would-be manager and friend, a photographer named Zelma Wilkins, was actively seeking a rock-band sponsorship to put Griffiths on the map. While on their way to a race at Hockenheim, Germany, in September, she and Griffiths took a meeting with the Rolling Stones. In the end, though, Grant—always looking for unique ways to market Led Zeppelin—was the interested taker. John Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin sponsored this car.

By late 1973 Griffiths’ McLaren was in a paint shop in London receiving a custom design from Richard Evans, a designer from Hipgnosis, the art firm that created countless classic-era album covers, including several for Pink Floyd. The project was the perfect cap to what proved to be a banner year for the company, which also saw the release of Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, both featuring Hipgnosis cover art.

In January 1974 Griffiths’ McLaren began a string of top finishes. Kaye won the March 1974 Silverstone Sports GT and Formula Libre races and was runner up at the April 1974 Silverstone Formula Libre race. After a spin during the May 1974 Martini International Trophy Supersports event at Silverstone, he went on to finish second in the May 1974 Silverstone Formula Libre race and move into the lead of the Haybrand Racewear Formula Libre championship points.



https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitaraficionado/led-zeppelins-mclaren-racecar-an-untold-story-from-rock-history
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/article/bonzos-big-banger-led-zeppelin-mclaren
https://www.conceptcarz.com/profile/3800,15079/1971-mclaren-m8e/d.aspx