Wednesday 2nd April 2014

CanAm 1971: Time For Tea?

Big V8s, dramatic crashes and girls in hot pants - can someone get a time machine for us?

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How did driving classic McLaren CanAm cars inform the way the 650S goes? Our interview with McLaren's Chris Goodwin tomorrow will answer this but researching it did inspire some YouTube browsing for reference material, some of which we think you'd like to accompany your afternoon brew.

This is pure 70s. Wedge-shaped cars with huge V8s. Men with polyester suits and big lapels. And cameramen with an unabashed roving eye for girls in hot pants wandering around the pits. Indeed, you almost expect Ron Burgundy to pop up mid-way through to offer his thoughts on the race.

Sniggering aside and once the racing gets underway the cars look seriously hairy, complaints from some of the teams on the day that the Mid Ohio track wasn't in good enough condition to run such beasts apparently played out in the first couple of turns.

Enjoy!

Vid here.

 

[Source: MotorsportsHistoryTV via YouTube]

[P4ROT]

Sitting here on my PC I've never felt more of a geek...

[Stig]

P4ROT said:

Sitting here on my PC I've never felt more of a geek...

Why not use a chair like normal people?

[Pistachio]

Can Am? Love it!!!

[andy_roe]

Sweet! Can't beat the CanAm V8!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOki34YkK4

[Oddball RS]

Back when life seemed simpler? and better..............

[GrumpyTwig]

I thought I was watching Deathrace for a moment.....

[Housey]

Rolling thunder at its very finest. I am not sure a more brutal championship has ever existed on track. Great drivers, epic cars, noise, movement, oversteer, speed, power. What happened to motorsport in the last few years...

[Robbie K]

Housey said:

Rolling thunder at its very finest. I am not sure a more brutal championship has ever existed on track. Great drivers, epic cars, noise, movement, oversteer, speed, power. What happened to motorsport in the last few years...

I'm guessing it was the drivers refusing to die on demand that changed things....

[The Hypno-Toad]

I love Can-Am. Proper bloody motor racing. Biggest possible engines and pretty much no rules.

Gas Turbines. Huge V8s with enormous turbos, hovercraft, HUGE wings, Porsche, McLaren, Ferrari, the black Shadows, the white Chapparals, Flat 12s with enormous turbos, lets try a car with small engines on each wheel. Very little grip. No traction control.

I have had the good fortune to sit in both an M6 and an M8 and my admiration for the guys who drove them then and now, is immense. There is no protection from anything, at all. People go on about the 1982 F1 cars having no protection for the drivers feet clearly have never sat in a Can Am car. Little bit of aluminium, little bit of fiberglass and maybe a radiator full of boiling water and that's it. Brave does not even do it justice. How JYS ever got in one with his views on safety is beyond me.

From The Toads own private collection.







Now put the kettle back on. Its time for lots of tea and for you to turn the speakers up on your computer full blast. Enjoy.

Jim Pace Motorsports.

Making you wish you worked a lot harder at school, were a lot better at driving and were gifted with balls of steel.

McLaren M6 Road America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI1up3ukikU

McLaren M8 Hampton Downs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4CaC7lXRus

McLaren M6 Laguna Seca
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqtBxqJraFg

To be able to live that life...

The Toad LOVES Can-Am.

[405dogvan]

Ah - when men were men, women were women, music was cheesy and Ray Bans were far, far from straight on the announcers face ;0

I fully expected Pearl and Dean ads for Kia Ora to appear in that film

[Buff Mchugelarge]

The presenters/ commentators are hilarious!
They're very excitable aren't they?

[Housey]

Robbie K said:

Housey said:

Rolling thunder at its very finest. I am not sure a more brutal championship has ever existed on track. Great drivers, epic cars, noise, movement, oversteer, speed, power. What happened to motorsport in the last few years...

I'm guessing it was the drivers refusing to die on demand that changed things....

Nah, all of those things are possible with safety, simplistic argument for the state of modern motorsport.

[sideways man]

My favourite race series.

Beautiful cars-check
Great noise-check
Awesome circuits-check

What more do you need?

Thanks to Mr Hypno-Toad for the you tube videos,especially the orange m6 at laguna seca. Boy does thay have some grunt!

[digger the goat]

Thanks for this thread...
My Uncle, Jo Marquart, was the designer of the M8a and several others.
Anyone with any memories of him and his work ?? Please P.M me

[speedtwelve]

Seeing and hearing Can-Am cars run up the hill at Goodwood is always one of the highlights of the FoS for me. The noise on the over-run...

The Jim Pace videos are great. That McLaren looks absolutely pant-soilingly quick from the cockpit.

[Mini1275]

The Can-Am championship has to be be my favourite race series ever, sadly I was born too late to witness it in person.

I love looking around these cars in person at events like Goodwood and can only admire the men that drove these brutal, fire-breathing machines.

[dinkel]

Michiel Campagne - 8-point-something Chevy and a bucketsize gearbox.


Trumpets on a top trump car.


Lifting the clutch makes the rear wheels slip . . . ouch.


The sound . . .


The ground shaking . . .


True thunder and a good thing these cars are not gaining dust in museums . . . awesome sight & sound.

[Turbobanana]

Robbie K said:

Housey said:

Rolling thunder at its very finest. I am not sure a more brutal championship has ever existed on track. Great drivers, epic cars, noise, movement, oversteer, speed, power. What happened to motorsport in the last few years...

I'm guessing it was the drivers refusing to die on demand that changed things....

That's a bit unfair. In general the series was pretty safe, considering the power & lack of safety measures (car and track). I'm happy to be corrected but I can only find reference to one driver (Dick Brown, Mosport 1970) who died at an event. Bruce McLaren famously died while testing at Goodwood, however.

My own feeling is that the great variety in performance between the cars helped keep the statistics low. Although these thunderous, glorious cars were fast, the races were often won by a lap or two due to the difference in performance brough about by the way individual teams interpreted the (thin) rule book. In today's over-regulated formulae there is no room for individuality so everything is much closer. One thing's for sure: we'll never see the like of Can Am again, sadly.

[canucklehead]

ohhh aaahhh ooooh. awesome. the first 35 secs of film are all that was great about CanAm (great cars, great drivers, great tracks, great chicks, great 70s experience) and all that was awful (cars with the safety protection of a sheet of clingfilm). the last 9mins reveal why CanAm died: processional races featuring one car miles ahead of the rest.

Mid-Ohio looks really bumpy in this film. is it still that way today?

and the McLaren has soooooo much travel on its suspension compared with modern racers. i think my modern road car has less compliance than that.