With the 5-litre sports cars excluded from the World Sportscar Championship from 1972, Porsche redirected the 917 programme toward Can-Am racing, where large-displacement engines were unrestricted. The naturally aspirated 5-litre flat-12 used in the European 917K was insufficient to match Can-Am's dominant McLarens in 1971, when Jo Siffert drove the 917PA Spyder with only moderate results. Rather than pursuing a 6.6-litre flat-16 engine that had been tested and found too heavy, Porsche chose to turbocharge the existing flat-12.
The 1972 917/10 was developed with new bodywork, a revised chassis, and the flat-12 engine fitted with two turbochargers producing approximately 850 horsepower. The car's aerodynamic package was distinct from the Le Mans and European circuit variants, optimised for the different demands of Can-Am circuits.
Roger Penske entered the 917/10 for primary driver Mark Donohue, but a testing accident sidelined Donohue during the season. George Follmer stepped in as replacement and went on to win the 1972 Can-Am championship, ending McLaren's dominance in the series that had persisted since 1967. The championship win represented a decisive demonstration of the turbo flat-12's superiority over the large-displacement naturally aspirated engines that had defined Can-Am competitiveness.
The 917/10 was further evolved into the 917/30 for the 1973 season. The 917/10 continued to be raced by customer teams in 1973, with most of the private opposition in that year's Can-Am made up of privateer 917/10K cars, as McLaren had already withdrawn from the series to focus on Formula One and the Indianapolis 500. Some customers later retrofitted their 917/10K cars with naturally aspirated engines following the introduction of a maximum fuel consumption rule for the 1974 season, which made the turbo engines uncompetitive.
The 1972 Can-Am 917/10 ran the 5.0-litre flat-12 engine with twin turbochargers, producing approximately 850 horsepower (630 kW) in race configuration. The chassis was a development of the lightweight spaceframe used across the 917 family, and the bodywork was purpose-designed for Can-Am circuits rather than derived from either the 917K or 917LH configurations used in Europe.
The 917/10 was the proving ground for Porsche's turbocharged racing engine programme, which would subsequently be applied across a range of platforms including the 911-based 934 and 935 GT cars and the 936 prototype. Its success in Can-Am validated turbocharging as a competitive strategy in motorsport at a time when the technology was still novel, and its development contributed directly to the even more extreme 917/30. The 917/10 also broke McLaren's Can-Am dynasty, a result that reshaped the North American sportscar landscape and established Penske Racing as a dominant force in American motorsport.