Can-Am started with two races in Canada and four in the United States of America, initially sponsored by Johnson Wax. The series was governed under the FIA Group 7 category, which permitted unlimited engine capacity (including turbocharging and supercharging), virtually unrestricted aerodynamics, and required only that a car have two seats, bodywork enclosing the wheels, and meet basic safety standards. Group 7 had originated as a category for non-homologated sports car specials in Europe; Group 7 racing was also popular in the United Kingdom during the 1960s and appeared as a hillclimb class in Europe. Group 7 cars were designed for short-distance sprints rather than endurance racing. Some Group 7 cars were also built in Japan by Nissan and Toyota but did not compete outside their homeland, though some Can-Am competitors occasionally raced against them.
Similar Group 7 cars ran in the European Interserie series from 1970, but that was a lower-key affair than Can-Am.
The series was initially dominated by Lola, after which the McLaren works team took over for five consecutive seasons (1967–1971) in what became known as the "Bruce and Denny show." The Porsche 917 was then perfected and became almost unbeatable in 1972 and 1973. After Porsche's withdrawal, Shadow dominated the last season before the original Can-Am faded and was replaced by Formula 5000. Racing was rarely close — one marque was usually dominant — but the noise and spectacle of the cars made the series highly popular.
The 1973 oil crisis and the increased cost of competing led the series to fold after the relatively lacklustre 1974 season. The single-seater SCCA Continental Championship Formula 5000 series became the leading road-racing series in North America, and many Can-Am drivers and teams continued to race there.
McLaren cars were developments of the sports cars introduced in 1964 for North American sports car races. The 1964 works car was the M1. For 1965 the M1A prototype served as team car and the basis for the Elva customer M1A cars. In late 1965 the M1b (Mk2) was the factory car for 1966 with Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon as drivers. In 1967, specifically for Can-Am, McLaren introduced the M6A, which also introduced the team's trademark orange colour. The team was notably multinational: Bruce McLaren, fellow New Zealander Chris Amon, and 1967 Formula One world champion Denny Hulme, with team manager Teddy Mayer and mechanics drawn from the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. The M6 series used a full aluminium monocoque and was powered by Chevy small-block V8s built by Al Bartz Engines in Van Nuys, California. From 1968 the M8A was based around a Chevy big-block V8 as a stressed chassis member; McLaren brought engine preparation in-house in 1969 with the M8B, M8C, M8D and M20C as further developments.
McLaren's dominance (1967–1971) included a one-two-three finish at Michigan International Speedway on 28 September 1969: McLaren first, Hulme second, and Dan Gurney third. On 2 June 1970 Bruce McLaren was killed at Goodwood when the rear bodywork of his prototype M8D detached during testing, causing a fatal high-speed crash. The works team continued after his death but could not match the turbocharged Porsche effort, and eventually withdrew to concentrate on Formula One.
The Porsche 908 spyder was used in Can-Am but was underpowered at 350 hp and mainly used by underfunded teams, though it did win the 1970 Road Atlanta race when the more powerful cars retired. The 917PA, a spyder version of the 917K Le Mans car, was raced but its normally aspirated flat-12 produced only 530 hp; Jo Siffert managed fourth in the 1971 championship.
For 1972 the 917/10K appeared with a turbocharged 900 hp five-litre flat-12. Prepared by Roger Penske and driven by Mark Donohue and George Follmer, these cars won six of the nine races. Porsche then introduced the 917/30KL, nicknamed the "Turbopanzer," producing 1,100 hp in race trim or 1,580 hp in qualifying trim from its 5.4-litre flat-12, weighing 1,800 lb (816 kg). It won six of eight races in the 1973 championship. Porsche's dominance was so complete that fuel-consumption rules were imposed for 1974. After Can-Am ended, in 1975 Donohue drove the 917/30 to a closed-course world speed record of 221 mph average (356 km/h) at Talladega Superspeedway; the car was capable of 240 mph (386 km/h) on the straights.
Jim Hall's Chaparral series were engineered with covert support from Chevrolet's research and development division and were leaders in the application of aerodynamics. The 2E of 1966 was the first high-wing race car; the 2G was a development of that design. After the FIA banned movable aerodynamic devices Chaparral responded with the 2H in 1969, which sought to reduce drag but had limited success. The 2J that followed used a conventional big-block Chevrolet engine for propulsion and a small snowmobile engine to power twin fans at the rear. Combined with movable Lexan skirts around the car's underside, the fans created a vacuum providing downforce equivalent to large wings but without their drag — a concept that would later appear in Formula One in the Brabham BT46B fan car of 1978.
The Lola T70, T160–165, T220, T260 and T310 were campaigned by the factory and various customers, primarily Chevy-powered. The Lola T70 driven by John Surtees won the first Can-Am championship in 1966. In 1971 the T260 took two victories with Jackie Stewart. In 1972 the radical T310 — the longest and widest Can-Am car of its era — was delivered late and suffered handling problems all season, its best result a fourth at Watkins Glen.
Well-established European manufacturers including Lotus, Ferrari, and BRM appeared with limited success; March tried to enter the market in 1970–71 without establishing themselves. American specialists McKee, Genie and Caldwell competed alongside exotica such as the four-engined Macs-It special.
British-born engineer Peter Bryant designed the Ti22 (also known as the Autocoast) as an American-built challenger to the British McLarens and Lolas, making extensive use of titanium in the chassis and experimenting with carbon-fibre for weight reduction. Bryant subsequently joined Don Nichols' UOP-sponsored Shadow team. Shadow's first car, designed by Trevor Harris with tiny wheels and roof-mounted radiators, was unsuccessful; more conventional Bryant-designed cars replaced it. After Bryant's departure, turbocharged Shadows came to dominate as Porsche and McLaren faded.
The original series attracted virtually every acclaimed driver of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Jim Hall, Mark Donohue, Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones, George Follmer, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Denny Hulme, Jacky Ickx, Bruce McLaren, Jackie Oliver, Peter Revson, John Surtees, and Charlie Kemp. Drivers who launched their careers in the revived series include Al Holbert, Alan Jones and Al Unser Jr.
Spiralling costs, a North American recession following the oil crisis, and dwindling support led the original series to end after 1974, with the last scheduled race of the season not even run.
In 1977 the SCCA introduced a revised Can-Am series based on a closed-wheel version of the cancelled Formula A/5000 rules. It grew steadily during the USAC/CART wars of the late 1970s and early 1980s, attracting top road-racing teams and a range of vehicles: rebodied single-seaters (particularly Lola F5000s), bespoke cars from March, and a 2-litre class for F2/Formula Atlantic-derived cars. As CART and IMSA's GTP championship grew in stature the series faded; in 1987 it was renamed the Can-Am Teams Thunder Cars Championship before evolving into the American Indycar Series after a single year.
In 1991, following 18 months of development, a Shelby Can-Am series was created using production sports-bodied cars powered by a 3.3-litre Dodge V6. It ran for five years before being dropped by the SCCA; a large number of cars were subsequently relocated to South Africa and raced from 2000 onwards. The Can-Am name was revived once more in 1998 when the United States Road Racing Championship broke from IMSA; the prototype class adopted the Can-Am name, but the series folded before the end of 1999 and the name was not retained in the successor Grand American Road Racing Championship.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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