Denis Clive "Denny" Hulme OBE (18 June 1936–4 October 1992) was a New Zealand car racer, the 1967 Formula One World Champion for the Brabham team. Hulme later went on to race for McLaren in Formula One, the Canadian-American Challenge Cup series (for Group 7 sports cars), and at Indianapolis. He was CanAm champion in 1968 (driving the McLaren M8A) and 1970 (driving the McLaren M8D "Batmobile"). He drove the McLaren M8F in 1971; teammate Peter Revson won the CanAm championship that year.
Hulme and Revson drove the McLaren M20 in the 1972 CanAm races, but the M20 was overpowered by Roger Penske's Porsche 917s (driven by Mark Donohue and George Follmer). Hulme retired from Formula One at the end of the 1974 season but continued to race Australian Touring Cars. Hulme's untimely death, caused by a heart attack whilst driving a BMW M3 during the Bathurst 1000, made him the first former Formula One champion to die of natural causes.
Hulme's debut season in the Cam-Am series heralded no points, but the year after, in the year of his F1 Championship win, he came home second in the series, behind team leader Bruce McLaren. Hulme's first Can-Am championship came his way in 1968, taking victories at Elkhart Lake, Edmonton and in Las Vegas and notching up 35 points. 1969 saw the McLaren team dominate the series; they won every race, with multiple 1–2 finishes, and even a 1–2–3 finish when Dan Gurney drove the spare M8B. Hulme scored five victories to eventually come home second again behind McLaren, this time on 160 points. In 1970 he took his second Can-Am title in difficult circumstances, as the team mourned the loss of Bruce McLaren who had died while driving the Can-Am car (the M8D) at Goodwood. Hulme took the championship, with 132 points—more than double the number of second-placed Lothar Motschenbacher.
In 1971 Hulme's teammate was his good friend Peter Revson. Revson took the Can-Am crown that year with Hulme in second. In his final Can-Am year, again teamed with Revson (both driving Mclaren M20s), he took a record 22nd series victory. Hulme ended up second in the competition with 65 points. Hulme competed in the Indianapolis 500 on four occasions: 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1971. His best results in the event were in 1967 and 1968, both times finishing fourth. He did not compete in the 1970 race, due to methanol burns to the hands after a fire during practice.
After leaving the sport, Hulme led the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers' Association) for a brief period, but the cut and thrust nature of the post was ill-suited to his gentlemanly nature and he did not fill the post for very long. He then retired to New Zealand, returning to touring cars in the early 1980s, driving for the concern of the well-travelled Scot, Tom Walkinshaw, racing for his Austin Rover team in the European Touring Car Championship.
