CAN-AM

1967 McLaren M1a, the forerunner …

1963. In the beginning … that man Roger Penske

The abbreviation ‘Can-Am’ seen on the Nichols N1a pages around here, is shorthand for the title of a North America race series which started in 1966.

It’s full title was the Canadian-American Challenge Cup and the first year consisted of 2 rounds in Canada and 4 in the States. Until ’66, there were plenty of series for salons/sedans in the US on everything from dirt ovals to their high banked speedways, most of the cars being powered by powerful Vee 8 derivations from normal road manufactured cars like Ford, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile etc.

Some wit decided to put one of these big-banger engines in a smaller European sized single seater chassis, sometimes cladding the single seat in an all-enveloping aerodynamic two seater sports car body (for better aerodynamics). We suddenly heralded very fast race cars.

I think it true to say that at this stage, that racing as a sporting pastime, circuit racing evolved from drag strip competition was growing exponentially in the States and needed an avenue of growth outside of puny (as they saw it) European pure race and sports cars chassis series. A few good pioneers were taking benefit from dropping the big American engines into our smaller but arguably more closely race-focussed chassis.

So of course, then, the US powers-to-be wanted a race of similar cars, and drew up relatively simple regulations demanding two seater bodies and almost unlimited everything else.

This was also a clear opportunity for British race car manufacturers to produce chassis to suit, to add to sales of their pure race and race sports car market. Transatlantic race car agencies & traffic boomed quite naturally.

While in the UK, manufacturers like Cooper, Brabham, Lotus & Lola produced good two-seater derivations from their racing formula cars, Bruce McLaren arrived from New Zealand and joined in the single seater hunt. But McLaren with proper race car vision, spotted the potential and dropped an Oldsmobile V8 unit in an early Cooper chassis, found himself racing against a Lotus produced by that other UK visionary, Colin Chapman. There was also an American entrepreneur-racer by the name of Roger Penske who had pretty much started this whole ‘big engine, small euro chassis’ game in 1962 with something he called a Zerex Special.

Bruce McLaren, McLaren Oldsmobile, Jim Clark Lotus 30 & Graham Hill Ferrari, leave the line for the Goodwood Unlimited Sports Car Race 1964. The ground shook …

 I recall being taken by Dad as a small school kid to Goodwood to watch ostensibly, an unlimited sports car race full of Astons, Ferraris, Maserati and other euro-exotica. It was almost offensive to find that a V8 powered ‘bastard’ ‘sports car’ McLaren with Bruce at the wheel, sat on pole, Jim Clark next to him in Chapman’s ‘bastard’ V8 Lotus 30 device. Neither the big V8 lasted long but they flew and the ground shook as they passed. Not unnaturally, the die was cast …

A few more visionaries imagined a 20 – 30 grid full of these thunderously noisy fast demanding unlimited race cars over and above any French formulation which claimed itself as a ‘world championship’ series. So their Can-Am race series was set up with off shoots found in the UK, then Europe, plus an offshoot which was taking those euro chassis and putting a smaller but equally dramatic V8 motors into something called Formula 5000.

So Can-Am was about to be come a major league series and Bruce McLaren quickly developed a suitable car, the M1a (geddit?) and was bombarded by requests for a copy, in addition to developing his Formula One Grand Prix cars. Jack Brabham and Colin Chapman for example rather gave up on the interference with their Grand Prix Formula One aspirations. The difference was that McLaren farmed out the build work to local UK based engineering concerns who could ‘productionise’ the process of manufacturing, whereas Chapman and Brabham gave up on it.

Goodwood testing for Bruce McLaren’s new Can-Am chassis.

The place later to claim his life while testing his all-conquering M8 derivations.

Footnotes

The Can-Am series continued with developments of both sublime and grotesque unlimited open two seater race cars until Porsche came up with a derivation of their World Championship winning 5 litre coupe, the 917. Again with Penske on the thick of it, they built their version of an unlimited open two seater Can-Am car of simply huge performance. Sadly but predictably, motor racing tends as it does to develop itself up it’s own demise. They became too-costly and hard to believe almost too fast for circuits to contain without total reconstitution. But that’s all another story. The famous ‘Can-Am’ series proper concluded in 1974.

But what we did get was this very simple two seater race car chassis carrying a very large powerful V8. And given what we know today from years of focused development, materials & construction, McLaren-man Steve Nichols and close engineering partner John Minett, knew they could produce a really beautiful open very-high-performance two seater before the end of the internal combustion motors and the Analogue Age. They knew they could insure the drama of direct connection with the road and instantaneous sensitivities, so started to draw around them experts from those days to execute …

Ladies & Gentlemen, it needed to be done.

We are proud to present to you the Nichols N1a …