I wish there would be a spiritual successor to can am because imagine a racing series like this nowadays with modern safety standards but also modern ways on making car go brrrr
*PEOPLE ALWAYS GO ON ABOUT NO RULES RACING* but a race engineer told me it would never be what people expect as racing is mostly limited by the safety at the track, so in reality it would look VERY similar to what we have today. OR there would be multiple fatalities per race. Rules are there to keep drivers alive - NOT to make cars boring and slow.
@@piccalillipit9211 Different engine configurations and car builds can be made without killing people. This just sounds like someone attempting to get ahead of an "F1 is boring" argument that hadn't even been mentioned in this thread.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s I was a tech inspector for SCCA. I had the privilege of working the CAN-AM races of ‘69, ‘70, ‘71 and 73 at the (now long defunct, covered over and over built) Riverside International Raceway. I met Jim Hall, Bruce McLaren, Mark Donahue, Denny (“She’ll come right by race day”) Hulme, Roger Penske and a host of other drivers, professional and amateur, of the time. Great fun at a wonderful time in motor sport.
I saw the Can Am series in 1972 and 1973 at what was then called Donnybrooke Raceway (now named Brainerd International Raceway) in central Minnesota. The '72 race was won by the late Francois Cevert, a good friend of Jackie Stewart. The track boasts the fastest turn one in America. I stood on the inside of turn one and watched the faster Can Am cars enter the corner at or near 200 MPH. Sights and sounds embedded in my mind for life. While turn one is still in partial use the track has been modified to eliminate the long front straight, slowing the approach to turn one. In '72 Milt Minter and Jackie Oliver came in second and third. Mark Donohue finished 17th after a puncture. Others such as Peter Revson, Denny Hulme and David Hobbs failed to finish for typical reasons of that era, smoking engine, cracked block and broken tie rod. The push for safety and the overwhelming dominance of Porsche horsepower spelled the end of Can Am. It was a time when aerodynamics were beginning to be seriously explored and horsepower was limited only by the quality of the materials used. Racing dynasties that live on to this day were born in Can Am.
Turn 1 of the long course is the fastest road course turn one. The long course is still used by some clubs Back in the 90's my vintage 2.8 RSR clone would do 170 mph, slight lift / tap the brake to bring the nose down. In my 968 de car just slide the brake pedal to lower the nose, now a days turn one and 10 are 10+ ft wider
The 70s and 80s were considered the most Dangerous Decades in Motorsports History (Can-Am and Group 3) But man were they worth it Edit: Sorry, i ment Group B
@@creeper4481 And arguably an era with some of the most talented drivers ever. A whole lot of F1 drivers were also Can-Am contenders, and those F1 cars were....awesome, and also extremely unforgiving.
This is why historic racing is the only one to watch. Seeing, and feeling, cars from this competition and F5000s roaring down a straight is just…. An experience. Words can’t explain the feeling.
It depends. many vintage guys running F5000 have no clue that is for 5000 cc engines and they run 350 and large Chevy engines. It's rare to see a 302 running.
I am forever thrilled to have had a conversation with the great man himself - Jim Hall. It was at Goodwood FoS in the late 1990s; I asked him what car of his was the most fun to drive. Answer: the Chaparral 2A. Very cool experience. Thanks for making this video, Scott.
I'd always known CAN-AM was beyond ridiculous but your video really captures just how much craziness and innovation happened in this series, fantastic video!
I was working at GM in Europe during this period and was an avid CanAm fan. Pete Lyons wrote the race reports for the British car magazine, Autosport, which I still follow today. There were rumors going around the Jim Hall was running a covert aerodynamics research operation for GM engineering. I'm inclined to believe this as GM engineering were a source of a lot of 'wacky' ideas that never saw the light of day in Detroit, but in Texas, away from the prying eyes of executive management, at Rattlesnake Raceway, Jim's private track, they could play to their hearts content. I'm fairly sure that the aluminum big blocks used by McLaren originated as part of a GM research project into making car engines from aluminum, especially those with linerless sintered metal cylinders for light weight and low friction, as eventually used in The Chevy Cosworth Vega blocks. The low friction surface was essentially sprayed on the linerless bores. That technology is common now but far ahead of the engineering then.
Chaparral's connection to Chevrolet Engineering is well documented in the book "Chevrolet = Racing?" by Paul VanValkenberg, who was an aerodynamicist at Chevrolet during that period. Chaparral was paid as a consultant by Chevrolet for doing "vehicle dynamics studies" at Rattlesnake Raceway. The working relationship was so close that the Chevrolet engineers could view data telemetry that Hall was taking on Rattlesnake Raceway in real time. GM was working on aluminum block engines starting in the 50's and first production of the 215 Olds and Buick V8's, which had cast-in iron liners. But Ed Cole was not satisfied. He wanted a lightweight engine that was cheaper to produce by not having cylinder liners. He worked with Reynolds Aluminum who was developing the A390 alloy, which had a hypereutectic content of silicon. During finishing of the cylinder bores, a special lapping process was used to etch away the aluminum leaving particles of pure silicon standing proud of the surface as the wear interface.
@@848evo4 YEAH...there were a LOT of Pinto's running around long after the last Vega was rusted back to its base metals.....one of my first automotive experiences was helping a guy re-ring a Vega engine so he could drive it as a work vehicle.....it was partially successful as it turned into a rust pile and pretty much disintegrated in the winter salt in northern Illinois
I loved Can-Am when I was a kid. So much innovation. I am an engineer now and Can-Am had something to do with that. Also as a result of Can-Am I have an appreciation for Sport race cars. In SCCA in the '70's Sport Racers were a popular and favorite class. You video was great, but you are only touching the tip of the iceberg as you mentioned. And those big block V8's sounded great, made lots of power and were reliable, considering how much power they were making. There was so much innovation in Can-Am you can do a series just on engines, then another on Chassis development. Then the teams. My favorite was Chaparral, and second was UOP Shadow.
As a kid in the late 60's/early 70's, I'd turn every pink eraser I had into a Can-Am racecar. Drawing wheels on the sides, air inlet up front, and a cockpit on top looking down ... so much fun to day dream in class. Can-Am; the coolest racing series ever ... and it's not even close.
This includes the best description of the Chaparrals (the most innovative race cars of their time and even years later!). They were so unique that most of the people don't take the time to understand what Hall was trying to do and the result was that it sounds like they were just goofy cars. As a Chaparral/Jim Hall fan, I really appreciate the time that was spent to try to accurately explain Jim Hall's creations. I also appreciate the dive into the most amazing racing series ever - CAN AM!!! Thank you!
After the Can-Am died, a lot of the McLarens , Lolas and a few Porsches ended up in the SCCA A-Sports Racing division, I can remember going up to the now closed Westwood circuit outside of Vancouver, BC, Canada and watching them thunder around the circuit. I also go to watch Gilles Villeneuve, Bobby Rahal and other future great drivers between 1975 to 1977, before I got posted to West Germany in June 1978.
Two Kiwis who were so successful it was called the Bruce and Denny show! Bruce designed and built the cars and he and Denny drove them. Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme and the McLaren M8F. Over a period of 5 years they together managed to win a total of 38 races.
@@GuitarRyder11 I think it was four snowmobile engines. Not only did Bruce and Denny do so well, look at the cars that won the races. Bruce made cars and sold them to others. They totally dominated the race until the Germans showed up. A back yard builder beating the biggest companies! But not so unusual for Kiwis, take a look at Burt Munro and John Britten.
I had the great pleasure of growing up going to Can-Am races with my mechanical, engineer, father and then later some Formula One for a dozen years Can-Am was truly magical. Amazing. The chaparral fan carswere just awesome I am thoroughly grateful I got to see them.
Great send up for a once great racing series. I attended a Can-Am race at Mosport in the early 70s and it remains one of the best experiences in my life. Beautiful cars, great drivers, great sounds , fantastic speeds!! When the field roared past....the ground shook! Saw Mark Donohue race the turbo Porsche.. Best looking car...the UOP Shadow!
I saw the Can-Am Reunion at the Monterey Historics and the Shadow was my favorite. It actually won too. I ran down to the paddock to see it up close and one of the mechanics said, "nice thing about leading the whole race is that the car stays clean".
150M is more than a F1 team, i'd lend them some supercomputer time, a team of junior engineers limit tires, so speed, so as human crew can still make sense
Fantastic job of covering story. I as a college student was lucky enough to watch can am at Laguna Seca in the late 60s and 70s, it was fantastic! Years later I raced my Formula Ford at laguna seca and sears point. A dream come true.
At 17:30 you list the dominating McLaren cars. however the M8A never dominated the 69' season, it was the M8B with a high mount wing. The B actually won every single race that season making it the most winning Can-Am car ever.
my brother and I spent 3 summers following Can-Am all over NE North America, from our local tracks of Mosport and Mount Tremblant to 8 hour drives to tracks such as Road America. You got incredibly close to these monsters at most tracks, and what you saw and heard was barely contained violence at incredible speeds. Plus, the cars were beautiful, especially McLaren. No other form of racing has gripped me like that in all these years. The pinnacle to us was the Bruce and Denny Show.
At 15:15 you said the Chaparral 2H was the first to have a composite chassis. The 1st Chaparral 2 had a fiberglass monocoque chassis and only later did he use aluminum (2E I believe and Hap Sharp called it the eyeball shaker). Hall attributed using fiberglass enabled quick repairs for minor accidents. Jim Hall and Colin Chapman were the giants of race car innovation in that time period. It's been just evolutionary since.
@DennisMerwood-xk8wp To whom do you think it is a sacrilege? I'm a big fan of Chunky but my vote is Hall. So many of his innovations found their way to a Lotus years after Hall had developed them!
@@grunewaj Jim Hall did not design his best Chapparals. His best cars, like the Indy 2k were designed by Englishman John Barnard The 2K was a Formula One-inspired ground effect Indy car designed by Barnard For which Jim Hall has always shamelessly accredited himself with designing. He was known for taking credit of the work of his employees. Read John Barnards biography. "The Perfect Car: The story of John Barnard, Formula 1’s most creative designer.' "So many of his innovations found their way to a Lotus years after Hall had developed them!" Name one please. Thanks.
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp It is true that Hall had a lot of help (few know how much) from GM. I certainly don't have any inside information on that. I can't say that he was 100% responsible for all the things that went on Chaparrals but given the loyalty of his crew, I doubt he took a lot of credit for anything they did. I know Barnard designed the 2K. I don't consider that the best Chaparral. Like you say, it was a copy and possibly improved Lotus 79 built for Indy. I take nothing from Barnard. He was a brilliant designer. For the record, if by best we mean the most successful, that would go to the 2C. It was the first of his revolutionary cars. If we mean best by most influential, that might go to the 2E. Every successful race car had wings after it. Chapman was brilliant too. He had probably more major innovations in F1 than anybody till after he died. He also had a propensity to build fragile cars. I think that is a substantial strike against him. As for innovations that Hall/Chaparral developed that ended up on Lotuses (or other F1 cars later: 1. wings (Lotus was about 2 years late on wings and didn't do a very good job with them and almost caused the death of Rindt) 2. side mounted radiators (used by all F1 teams but years after Chaparral used them) 3. active suspension (Lotus' was certainly much more advanced and sophisticated and Williams beyond Lotus) 4. composite monocoque (the 2C was the first car with a composite monocoque at a time when most cars in his class were space frame construction) 5. modular wheels 6. flipper (before wings, the 2C had a flipper that increased downforce and added to braking in the turns and was feathered for low drag in the straights - sort of like the current F1 DRS system). 8. skirts for ground effects
Awesome video! Love the series and I would love to see you talk about McLarens, Shadows and Lolas too, your videos are always so interesting and I am learning something new every time!
One thing that you missed is the fact that the McLaren CanAm team was the first to demonstrate aerodynamically generated downforce with the under body. That doesn't show up in pictures but the engineers had pressure ports installed in their test cars and verified negative pressure in testing. They had a bit of celebration and then zipped their mouths about it. Porsche learned tourbocharging from Penske and Mark Donahue who had been racing turbocharged engines since 1970. Turbocharging was a thing in Indy racing since 1967 and won most pavement races from 1968 on. When the Penske team was brought on to Porsche's CanAm program they were surprised as the level of Porsche's knowledge and how much they could teach them about making turbocharging work. Jim Hall got most of his best ideas from advanced engineering at Chevrolet. They could not race it by company rules but they rolled the test items out the back door for Hall to work with. I would say that he had to do much work getting the concepts to the racetrack but the 2H was the exception as a car that Hall initiated.from scratch. If you wish to learn more then find a copy of "Chevrolet Racing?" By Paul Van Valkenburgh published 1972. Also the Chaparral Indy car was copied off the Lotus 78 design and Hall never would acknowledge that which was one of the reason Al Unser and Hall parted ways after Unser drove the car it's first year. I suppose PR is designed to be self serving but the claims made in the early 1980's by Hall Racing were beyond the normal in the twisting of the truth.
This one of the BEST CanAm documentaries I've ever watched ! Great in depth details of the various engineering aspects of several cars ! This gives us the perspective of how the engineers and designers thought and developed these techno road rockets ! A shame that the series was ended because it was the fast track towards brilliant innovations ! Hats off to this site and the subject !
Was Can-Am also known as Group 7? I have a book called Group 7 and these cars are in it. Also I got to watch the 917/K Porsche run at Riverside in a Vintage Car race. Riverside closed it's doors with the 917/K still holding the track speed record. Thanks for the presentation, it brings back memories of some fantastic cars.
And today you can buy an air conditioned stereo equipped 4-door passenger sedan for under $90,000 that will match or beat that 2.2 seconds right out of the showroom, electronically limited to a top speed of "only" 200MPH by the manufacturer due to tire concerns. Amazing progress over the years.
@@philgiglio7922 Got a link proving that, Phil? I have never heard of that? Was the 917/30 a space frame? Old school in 1974! The McLarens and Lola's were state-of-the-art monocoques. Structural systems in which loads are carried by the external skin. No tubular space frame, even inflated with nitrogen gas, can match the stiffness of a monocoque chassis. Not even come close.
Those figures for HP are not correct. There are people who KNOW, who were present for dyno testing, that the upper end of the HP of the engine with FULL open turbo was around 2000HP easily. And anyone who thinks Mark never turned it up to full, is delusional, and we witnessed the extreme turbo-lag in person at Mid-Ohio. What should be the most famous quote in motorsports history: "I should be able to smoke the tires all the way around the track." ~ Mark Donahue to Porsche Engineers. The rest, of course is history.
My father was a lifelong motorsports fan like me and would tell anyone who would listen that the original CanAm series was hands down the most interesting and exciting form of road racing ever. Thank you for this awesome video!
I think that footage between 12:36 to 12:51 is footage from the event at Mid-Ohio that year. That looks exactly like the S section that is corner 4, 5, and 6.
The CanAm started as a short season after the F1 season was ending. The last 3 f1 races were in North America (Canada, US, Mexico). They changed the series to last the whole year, creating a conflict with F1. The Tasman series in New Zealand and Australia raced over the winter in the northern hemisphere when F1 wasn't racing. All the races in 1968 were won by F1 drivers. That year Clark won 4 races, Amon 2, and McLaren and Courage one each. Jim Hall's operation was tightly coupled with Chevrolet engineering. At this time GM, then the world's largest car manufacturer, had officially left racing. Unofficially, they were engineering the Chaparral race cars. Hall also raced Chevy Camaros in the 1970 Trans Am series.
Speed racer was from the late 60s, around the time of Can-am cars and the time where the sports prototypes reached over 200 mph, it was inspired by these sports.
I love this series. First time I got real exposure to it was when my dad got me a DVD called the Can Am the Speed Odyssey. Seeing all these cool cars the rapid changes they went through from season to season with Jim Hall and Chaparral leading the way in outside the box thinking. Shame they didn't have more success. From a financial and safety standpoint I can see why a series like this more than likely will never return since it can get out hand really quickly, but I do wish there was a spiritual successor.
Excellent video. I also wanted to chime in and say you and Nate did a superb job at the Off-Road Games. Very capable vehicle, driver, and spotter. It was great to watch you.
Very good video, nice job. I'm an old guy in his sixties; my childhood and the decade of the sixties are essentially the same time period. I was fascinated by cars as a boy, becoming interested in racing in the mid sixties. So the Can Am series got my attention! I thought it was fantastic, with the awesome cars (too bad the word is overused), and the attraction to the series of the top international drivers of the time. With that, I am stunned seeing the story of the "Mac's IT Special". Aside from being a fantastically unique design, in all the years since my youth and the prime of Can Am, this is the first I can remember ever seeing or knowing anything at all about that car! This is astonishing... not just the car itself, but the fact that in a half century or so, I have never known of this! Of course, that could be a whole weird story, that car. Some things are obvious, like, for one example, how do you deal with trying to somehow synchronize all four engines? Imagine trying to drive a racing car when, at any throttle position, you have an engine attached to each wheel with all four turning at different slightly RPM. Yow! Jim Hall was a boyhood hero, with the story of being an American driver who also designed and built his cars, and then, making those engineering marvels, every step of the way. I was lucky to actually meet him briefly in the paddock after the 1995 CART Cleveland race, finding myself standing face to face with the man himself, just the two of us. Sadly, a real regret, I missed a chance to actually talk a bit, for at least a minute or two, for the simple reason that, finding myself three feet away from him face to face, my mind was swirling with so many things that I kind of stupidly blanked out about what to say, and I just got him to scrawl his name on something (especially stupid, in my mind afterward, as I think autographs are kind of silly and pointless... I have no idea if I still have that somewhere). One minor thing- as there was talk in the video about a car running one time at Laguna Seca (around 12:30), we see old footage of Mid-Ohio in olden days, not Laguna Seca. That was cool, anyway. It's interesting to see that, an old look at what is a favorite track, the closest major road course in my part of the world. (For a bit of perspective for an Englishman, a place I kind of regard as something like the Brands Hatch of America, a great circuit that's kind of like someone laid out a racing track in a park.)
Without meaning any disrespect to Jim Hall, it bears mentioning that he had a lot of assistance - both financial and engineering - from Chevrolet. Along similar lines, the Chaparral 2K Indy car shown briefly at the end of this video was designed largely by John Barnard, not Hall (though the latter implies otherwise).
Jin Hall told Barnard that a condition of his employment was that he was to always say that he, Hall, designed the cars. John soon quit ~ after designing the groundbreaking Chaparral 2K ground effects Indy car . Hall always wanted to take all the credit. Huge ego!
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp Claims without Proof = highly suspect ego ! 😞 [Like Games without Frontiers - more without fears] On this I-Net, specifically this platform anyone can make their baseless claims without fears {Jim will never know nor challenge nor John] Good Luck -> Bye Bye
Awesome video,loved it. Not to crazy with unnecessary information, but you were able to still pack a good amount of the interesting stuff in. You hit the Goldie Locks, just right. Thank you and keep 'em coming
I, like many other youngsters, were doing slot car racing at slot car tracks and I remember the one on College Avenue in Berkeley (California) or Oakland maybe, had a man there running the place who built his own. He put weights on the rear wing so when the car was braking it came up and these little model cars running with metal brushes in a slot in the smooth track would just fly ! Even the Chapparal that I had by Matel or whoever made it, was pretty fast. I think there are actually slot car tracks still in operation somewhere in the usa. Thanks Driver for the video. My cousin and I went to Laguna Seca a time or two, not sure what we watched it's been so long. Can Am cars were always my favorite to watch on tv must have been where I saw them.
Classic had a slot car named the stinger that used the decelleration of the motor to lift a rear panal on top to serve as an air brake. I grew up in Berkeley and the older kids would go to the slot car track in Berkeley Oakland boarder. My parents would take me to the one at Playland at the Beach which had a huge track. I wish I still had my slot cars.
Excellent video. I especially appreciate the emphasis on Chaparral. I was a kid when this series was on and I was fascinated by Chaparral. They always had the coolest cars.
I would love there to be a truly unlimited class of road racing, where any type of technology was allowed, and there is no such thing as "too fast". Professional drivers are just that - professionals. If they want to take the risks, that is their choice. Let the engineers run the show!
Mate, PLEASE give us more of these! I could watch You HOURS going on about these. Very exiting creations. Dangerous, maybe, too but very exiting. Especially the 4 twostroke engine car. I love twostrokes (but not very much two stroke stuffing)
My Boss and good friend drove the Mclaren Can-Am M8E here in Australia and it still holds the unofficial lap record at our local track. The Porsche 917/30 was amazing too, it had a flat 12, aircooled, only 2 valves per cylinder and had an air pressure gauge fitted to the chassis with a gas inside, if the chassis developed a crack, you would see the gauge pressure fall off to let you know. I love Can-Am too, amazing stuff.
The Chaparrals didn't have automatic transmissions, but had a torque converter in place of a clutch. The thinking was being able to use gearboxes with fewer gears. It is correct that they did not have a clutch pedal.
Many thanks for the fine video on the engineering behind these great Can-Am cars. I always thought Jim Hall's cars were amazing even though I was huge McLaren fan. Please make more videos on the Can-Am series. Cheers!!!!
Another interesting tidbit I've heard about the 2j is that it had a 3 speed automatic (at least, I think it was an auto) gearbox to keep the car from pitching back and forth too much when changing gears, which caused it to have crazy long gearing that made its acceleration slower than it could have achieved otherwise As an aside I'd love to see a modern can-am, but perhaps with spending limits on the cars to prevent the sport from spiralling out of control with costs and ensure smaller teams have a better chance of competing, and have modern safety standards of course, but other than that keep the spirit of minimal rules from can-am alive But alas, even if it did happen, I don't think we'd see quite the same level of creativity and madness from that halcyon era, and people like me pining for a return would be eternally disappointed
It actually had a manual gearbox, but used a torque converter instead of a clutch!! That left the driver able to use his left foot on the wing control pedal!! AWESOME!!! 😃
@@johnbutera5805 it seems the websites claiming it's an automatic need updating as their information is wrong You're correct of course that it used a clutchless design with a torque converter, but it seems it's a bit more interesting even than that if I'm understanding it correctly, as it's somewhat of a precursor to the semi-automatic designs seen in modern racecars, which is pretty neat, considering that its contemporaries were still very much wedded to fully manual gearboxes Cheers for the comment clarifying in any case! I learned something new about this awesome beast
@@PaulTheFox1988 If I remember correctly, it used a torque converter, but it was definitely a manual shifted tranny with dog gears instead of synchros, typical for a racing transmission. Because of the slip in the torque converter, all the driver had to do was slightly back off the throttle to unload the gears, shift as quickly as possible, then BANG!!! back on the gas!! 😃
I had heard of Shadow, and Chapparal, but I grew up in a motor racing family, with my father having once long before I was born, worked for John Surtees, among many other famous names. I actually race in a Can Am series regularly in slot car racing, where my preferred car is a Lola on a metal chassis, so this is a fun video to watch and learn more about the wild and outlandish things the Can Am manufacturers and teams tried in their pursuits of victory.
A racing series that actually sounds interesting to watch?! Why is this not a thing now? We have decades of new racing knowledge that we could incorporate into a new series
@@rideepicdriveepic- I dont - I mostly loath Am3ric4. I was just pointing out a fact that they don't have technical test in most states - which partially accounts for why they unalive in cars 12 X more often than Europeans. But what it does not result in - apparently - are lots of amazing cars. They just drive death traps.
I was born in 73 and all the toy cars I had were of Can-Am cars. While I never got to watch one of their races, the series did impact my youth. What a magnificent era of motorsports.
6:35 - That's allot of unsprung weight. Less unsprung weight means faster acting suspension to keep tire in contact with the track over bumps. example - Lotus 72's inboard brakes.
No, not at all. The force from the wing is only pushing downwards and not adding a ton of mass to the wheeIs. It has the same effect on the wheels as normal mounted wing would have, you just bypass the cars suspension and thus the need to make that unwanted stiff.
This warms my heart, seeing long over due, respect for the incredible Jim Hall! He was like a Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman hybrid.. Excellent content, 61!
John Barnard designed all the successful Chapparals. Jim Hall just shamelessly took all the credit. To put him in the same sentence as Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman is sacrilege.
I love your channel & subject matter in this case. During the 1980's I worked for Lee Hurley(HESCO) & Charlie Cook(Southwind Enterprises) At both shops we did quite a bit of "Creative Engineering" and as far as I know it was never discovered by Tech Inspectors. Hidden nitrous, strut tower mods for camber/caster, windshield angles, titanium used in place of chrome moly roll cage,acid dipping,filling driver's helmet with lead to pass post race weight inspection etc..
Very nicely done! At Canepa Motorsports Mark Donohue is quoted saying “the 917-10 is the only car I have ever driven that will spin the tires at 200 mph”
What happens when there are “no rules” ?? Excitement, innovation, men pushing themselves and the envelope !!! Today you have rule strangled racing of all venues where the car has become secondary at best and the focus has turned to cookie cutter drivers, and sponsors names shoved down our throats over and over. Today’s Motorsports are dying and rightly so !! Nothing but a giant bore 👎🏼👎🏼
There’s a few Can Am cars in Forza Motorsport. I just happened to be playing around with Chaparral 2E when this video dropped. I love doing Free Races at The Nürburgring with the Can Am cars.
I had the opportunity to see the Can-Am cars and the Chaparrals a few years ago at Laguna Seca. Jim Hall is an unspoken of hero of motor racing, a very creative and innovative mind.!! All these are indeed amazing cars!!
I had two friends who ran Can Am. One was Dick Durant and the other Bob Klempel. While the idea of no rules so that the "if you can dream it, you can run it" thought prevails, the cost factors become prohibitive. Eventually, he who has the most money wins. And that is how Porsche won. Dick's wife Judy said that like all their racing venues, they were keeping track of the costs at first, then realized it was so insane, they really didn't want to know. Dick had also said that he realized he needed to up his homeowner's insurance because the night he brought the Lola home, he had doubled the value of his home.
Cracking video mate. Keep making content, your a natural. Both got kicked out 😂... had no idea a patrol could move that fast, let alone fo a wheelie. Have only just got myself a GQ TI patrol... would never imagined that people were doing this with the big girls. Thanks for sharing.
BRILLIANT! subscribed!! .002 seconds - these cars were all my childhood fantasies - mostly from 1/64th (HO) scale slot cars! They made all of the can am cars in one kit or another - thank you for doing this video and please do more!
This was a nice walk down memory lane! I grew up watching the can am series... 😂 My dad grew up going to Watkins Glen when F1, can am, and others would race there.... 😢
Seen a few of these cars up close at Goodwood FOS. They're terrifying standing still! Cannot imagine lamping it round a track in the 60s/70s. The sound is glorious however ❤
Yes more please! I just missed the the Can-Am glory years by just a few years. Being born in 75 by the time I really got into racing in the mid 80s Can-Am was pretty much done. I remember hearing about how bonkers the cars were in the 70s and I wish that I had gotten the chance to see them them in action.
Growing up in Brainerd Minnesota I was fortunate enough to live at a time when Donnybrook, later to become Brainerd international Raceway was born and saw the first series of Can-Am races ever held there, all the film cannot even come close to describing what it was like actually being at one of those races And seeing what it truly was, it was beyond awe inspiring. It was a trip into another world. I’m only sad that people can no longer experience that in this form of motorsport.
Born in 57, grew up watching Can-am and Trans-am. Penske Camaros and Halls Chaparrals were my favorites. Started drag racing in 73 with a 69 Z/28 and l'm still building my own 302s. No small block has that sound and nothing will ever sound as powerful as a big block chevy in a Can-am car at full song. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Shame most new gearheads will never know.
The 917 was the most spectacular sports rating car I ever saw. In 1970 as a 17 year old kid, two motor Journalists in a Honda N600 test car took me to Brands Hatch for the BOAC 500 mile race. The weather was atrocious and at the end of the first lap we had to run for cover as a black Lola T70 was spinning towards us as we (journalists) were just leaving the starting line. But to watch Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen lap after lap hurtling down the main straight with the car briefly wiggling every time they shifted from 3rd to 4th was an amazing sight. At that time Rodriguez was the world's best driver in the wet. Needless to say they won. The car really was revolution and over time a number of drivers acquired the skill to handle them successfully.
F1 had one dalliance with negative-pressure fans (well, one fan) with the Brabham BT46 ‘fan car’. Pressure from other teams made sure the affair was short. The principle complaint was that the huge rear fan picked up any debris from the track and hurled it at high speed at any following car.
I read an article about the McLaren Can-Am car in about 1971 (I was about 15). Great diagrams. I remember two things--the 494 cubic inch engine (Chevy I think), and that the engine without manifolds would fit in a cubical box 24" on a side.
I’m 60 and grew up watching this series at Mid-Ohio and Road America . Met Mark Donahue after he won Mid-Ohio in the 917-30, he was very nice, his mother was there as well.
Love ya work... Subscribed today... Keep the vids coming and more can am if poss.... It's hard to see old can am races and info so u r filling a hole in my motorsport knowledge... Thank u
It's the 'creative silliness' that makes Can-Am just so human. Something that is seriously lacking in modern autosports. Slap a massive elevated wing on? Let's try it! Build a petrifying big chonker with 1100 HP? No problem! A spaceship on 4 wheels? We'll roll with it man!
Grew up in Monterey California and went to the can-am series at Laguna Seca many times with the family as a kid. Can't miss the cork-screw in some of the clips shown here. As you stated, Mclaren was the big name to beat back then and the cars were strange compared to everything else racing out there at the time. Beatle-powered formula V was popular too. I remember can-am as being comically wide, low and very flat. The cars looked huge on the track at times. I remember the vacuum car as it created controversy that appeared in our local news paper. Allegedly, it ejected small rocks that it vacuumed up off the track and shot them into the faces and cars of drivers behind it, (so they claimed),. Probably no loose gravel on the track after it showed up - very clean. I remember only seeing it one year then it was gone supposedly due to politics is what we'd heard. Don't remember the two-stroke car though. Sure wish I did. Love that stuff. The way the series vanished was strange to some of us kids as it had been such a big thing and we'd bought slot car models of them to race. They race in the vintage series at laguna once in a while I've heard. Cheers.
I looked up the engines used in the Mac's IT Special and they made 110 hp, so four of them is a total of 440 and given what the engines in the other cars produced, it was just underpowered. Which is a wild thing to say about a car from 1970 with 440 horsepower. Be interesting to see what it could've done if it actually had enough power to be competitive.
My guess would be way too heavy too, isnt it? Always much more efficient to have one big volume enclosed than having 4 smaller ones. So lots of weight from the 4 engines with not that much power
I wish there would be a spiritual successor to can am because imagine a racing series like this nowadays with modern safety standards but also modern ways on making car go brrrr
Well, if we remove the driver from the equation, we can re-create the Can-Am no-rule racing. And that would truly be the race of engineers!
For competative reasons, there should probably be safety regs and a budget cap. Otherwise, go wild.
It would be lmdh on steroids
*PEOPLE ALWAYS GO ON ABOUT NO RULES RACING* but a race engineer told me it would never be what people expect as racing is mostly limited by the safety at the track, so in reality it would look VERY similar to what we have today.
OR there would be multiple fatalities per race. Rules are there to keep drivers alive - NOT to make cars boring and slow.
@@piccalillipit9211 Different engine configurations and car builds can be made without killing people. This just sounds like someone attempting to get ahead of an "F1 is boring" argument that hadn't even been mentioned in this thread.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s I was a tech inspector for SCCA. I had the privilege of working the CAN-AM races of ‘69, ‘70, ‘71 and 73 at the (now long defunct, covered over and over built) Riverside International Raceway. I met Jim Hall, Bruce McLaren, Mark Donahue, Denny (“She’ll come right by race day”) Hulme, Roger Penske and a host of other drivers, professional and amateur, of the time. Great fun at a wonderful time in motor sport.
Did you get any wrenches thrown at you? Lol
Very lucky human 🙂
Jealous you got to hear, see and smell these amazing cars in person.
What a great privelege to remember as the years go by.
yea man its my fault for being born on the other side of the world in the 2000s
Literally the best racing ever. Best cars and drivers. I do wish someone could bring back a series like this.
I saw the Can Am series in 1972 and 1973 at what was then called Donnybrooke Raceway (now named Brainerd International Raceway) in central Minnesota. The '72 race was won by the late Francois Cevert, a good friend of Jackie Stewart.
The track boasts the fastest turn one in America. I stood on the inside of turn one and watched the faster Can Am cars enter the corner at or near 200 MPH. Sights and sounds embedded in my mind for life. While turn one is still in partial use the track has been modified to eliminate the long front straight, slowing the approach to turn one.
In '72 Milt Minter and Jackie Oliver came in second and third. Mark Donohue finished 17th after a puncture. Others such as Peter Revson, Denny Hulme and David Hobbs failed to finish for typical reasons of that era, smoking engine, cracked block and broken tie rod.
The push for safety and the overwhelming dominance of Porsche horsepower spelled the end of Can Am. It was a time when aerodynamics were beginning to be seriously explored and horsepower was limited only by the quality of the materials used. Racing dynasties that live on to this day were born in Can Am.
Surely, the fastest turn one in America is at Talladega.
that is absolutely so cool. great comment
Turn 1 of the long course is the fastest road course turn one.
The long course is still used by some clubs
Back in the 90's my vintage 2.8 RSR clone would do 170 mph, slight lift / tap the brake to bring the nose down.
In my 968 de car just slide the brake pedal to lower the nose, now a days turn one and 10 are 10+ ft wider
Can-Am was the most creative and exciting period of motor racing to exist. As a child, I marveled at what could only be called supercars back then.
The 70s and 80s were considered the most Dangerous Decades in Motorsports History
(Can-Am and Group 3)
But man were they worth it
Edit: Sorry, i ment Group B
CanAm and then GroupB. Yes. There is a reason these cars are still celebrated
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤l@@creeper4481
More like hypercars IMO.
@@creeper4481 And arguably an era with some of the most talented drivers ever. A whole lot of F1 drivers were also Can-Am contenders, and those F1 cars were....awesome, and also extremely unforgiving.
This is why historic racing is the only one to watch. Seeing, and feeling, cars from this competition and F5000s roaring down a straight is just…. An experience. Words can’t explain the feeling.
It depends. many vintage guys running F5000 have no clue that is for 5000 cc engines and they run 350 and large Chevy engines. It's rare to see a 302 running.
I am old enough to have had these cars as Hot Wheels. All our favorite was the Chaparral 2E. The wing blew our minds.
Yes! I still have mine!
I still have my white Chaparral 2E, but the wing is long gone.
I have one of those Chaparral cars from Hot Wheels but it's from 1999. Still cool looking though.
Strombecker Slot Cars: Ford J Car.
I still collect Hot Wheels and those ones are highly prized today. Wish I still have mine from the 70s.
I am forever thrilled to have had a conversation with the great man himself - Jim Hall. It was at Goodwood FoS in the late 1990s; I asked him what car of his was the most fun to drive. Answer: the Chaparral 2A. Very cool experience. Thanks for making this video, Scott.
Did he explain why the 2A was his favorite?
@@RalstigRacing He said that it was the most fun to drive.
I'd always known CAN-AM was beyond ridiculous but your video really captures just how much craziness and innovation happened in this series, fantastic video!
I was working at GM in Europe during this period and was an avid CanAm fan. Pete Lyons wrote the race reports for the British car magazine, Autosport, which I still follow today.
There were rumors going around the Jim Hall was running a covert aerodynamics research operation for GM engineering. I'm inclined to believe this as GM engineering were a source of a lot of 'wacky' ideas that never saw the light of day in Detroit, but in Texas, away from the prying eyes of executive management, at Rattlesnake Raceway, Jim's private track, they could play to their hearts content.
I'm fairly sure that the aluminum big blocks used by McLaren originated as part of a GM research project into making car engines from aluminum, especially those with linerless sintered metal cylinders for light weight and low friction, as eventually used in The Chevy Cosworth Vega blocks. The low friction surface was essentially sprayed on the linerless bores. That technology is common now but far ahead of the engineering then.
Chaparral's connection to Chevrolet Engineering is well documented in the book "Chevrolet = Racing?" by Paul VanValkenberg, who was an aerodynamicist at Chevrolet during that period. Chaparral was paid as a consultant by Chevrolet for doing "vehicle dynamics studies" at Rattlesnake Raceway. The working relationship was so close that the Chevrolet engineers could view data telemetry that Hall was taking on Rattlesnake Raceway in real time.
GM was working on aluminum block engines starting in the 50's and first production of the 215 Olds and Buick V8's, which had cast-in iron liners. But Ed Cole was not satisfied. He wanted a lightweight engine that was cheaper to produce by not having cylinder liners. He worked with Reynolds Aluminum who was developing the A390 alloy, which had a hypereutectic content of silicon. During finishing of the cylinder bores, a special lapping process was used to etch away the aluminum leaving particles of pure silicon standing proud of the surface as the wear interface.
@@andyharman3022 that Vega aluminum block didn't wear, but the damn rings wore like crazy
@@848evo4 YEAH...there were a LOT of Pinto's running around long after the last Vega was rusted back to its base metals.....one of my first automotive experiences was helping a guy re-ring a Vega engine so he could drive it as a work vehicle.....it was partially successful as it turned into a rust pile and pretty much disintegrated in the winter salt in northern Illinois
I loved Can-Am when I was a kid. So much innovation. I am an engineer now and Can-Am had something to do with that. Also as a result of Can-Am I have an appreciation for Sport race cars. In SCCA in the '70's Sport Racers were a popular and favorite class. You video was great, but you are only touching the tip of the iceberg as you mentioned. And those big block V8's sounded great, made lots of power and were reliable, considering how much power they were making. There was so much innovation in Can-Am you can do a series just on engines, then another on Chassis development. Then the teams. My favorite was Chaparral, and second was UOP Shadow.
As a kid in the late 60's/early 70's, I'd turn every pink eraser I had into a Can-Am racecar.
Drawing wheels on the sides, air inlet up front, and a cockpit on top looking down ... so much fun to day dream in class.
Can-Am; the coolest racing series ever ... and it's not even close.
This includes the best description of the Chaparrals (the most innovative race cars of their time and even years later!). They were so unique that most of the people don't take the time to understand what Hall was trying to do and the result was that it sounds like they were just goofy cars. As a Chaparral/Jim Hall fan, I really appreciate the time that was spent to try to accurately explain Jim Hall's creations. I also appreciate the dive into the most amazing racing series ever - CAN AM!!! Thank you!
😊😊
After the Can-Am died, a lot of the McLarens , Lolas and a few Porsches ended up in the SCCA A-Sports Racing division, I can remember going up to the now closed Westwood circuit outside of Vancouver, BC, Canada and watching them thunder around the circuit. I also go to watch Gilles Villeneuve, Bobby Rahal and other future great drivers between 1975 to 1977, before I got posted to West Germany in June 1978.
Two Kiwis who were so successful it was called the Bruce and Denny show!
Bruce designed and built the cars and he and Denny drove them. Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme and the McLaren M8F.
Over a period of 5 years they together managed to win a total of 38 races.
@@GuitarRyder11 I think it was four snowmobile engines.
Not only did Bruce and Denny do so well, look at the cars that won the races. Bruce made cars and sold them to others. They totally dominated the race until the Germans showed up. A back yard builder beating the biggest companies!
But not so unusual for Kiwis, take a look at Burt Munro and John Britten.
@@GuitarRyder11What the hell are you even talking about? Drugs for Easter huh? Wild.
@oscardelta147 Chris did win a race in the McLaren, in 1969, but he was never a season champion, Bruce and Denny tied that up.
@@mirandahotspring4019 Only Bruce and Denny won races in 69'. Chris only won non-championship races.
@@ConfusedGamerNZ I know, he won race 6 on the Road America circuit. Bruce won the driver's championship that year.
I had the great pleasure of growing up going to Can-Am races with my mechanical, engineer, father and then later some Formula One for a dozen years Can-Am was truly magical. Amazing. The chaparral fan carswere just awesome I am thoroughly grateful I got to see them.
Gotta admit, I envy you, I got formula 1 under the era of OG Schumacher, talk about boring!
Great send up for a once great racing series. I attended a Can-Am race at Mosport in the early 70s and it remains one of the best experiences in my life. Beautiful cars, great drivers, great sounds , fantastic speeds!! When the field roared past....the ground shook! Saw Mark Donohue race the turbo Porsche.. Best looking car...the UOP Shadow!
I saw the Can-Am Reunion at the Monterey Historics and the Shadow was my favorite. It actually won too. I ran down to the paddock to see it up close and one of the mechanics said, "nice thing about leading the whole race is that the car stays clean".
My god we need to bring this back : £150M cost cap, decent safety standards but no limits on fuel, engine size, tyres, aero, etc
150M is more than a F1 team, i'd lend them some supercomputer time, a team of junior engineers limit tires, so speed, so as human crew can still make sense
Gilles Villeneuve would reincarnate for that!
Yes, it would be fantastic.
But, what fuel.?
Electric will be boring.
Just use gasoline...?@@snakezdewiggle6084
@@snakezdewiggle6084 All of the fuel
Fantastic job of covering story. I as a college student was lucky enough to watch can am at Laguna Seca in the late 60s and 70s, it was fantastic!
Years later I raced my Formula Ford at laguna seca and sears point. A dream come true.
At 17:30 you list the dominating McLaren cars. however the M8A never dominated the 69' season, it was the M8B with a high mount wing. The B actually won every single race that season making it the most winning Can-Am car ever.
I love the Chapparal 2E.
Engineer: How big should the wing be Mr Hall?
Mr Hall: YES
Also Mr. Hall: I have the biggest.......
"so the suction didn't leak out" - 🙌💪😂 Physics salutes your script sir 🖖
Luckily we have an atmosphere, otherwise space might leak onto the earth 😆
@@willbeasy2898 IT WOULDNT DARE!!!!
thats what she said
I love this channel's series on racing/f1/other "with no rules", every single one of these videos is fascinating.
Great video that reminds us when Cars were Cars, these CAN-AM race cars are basically XXL size and power of go karts when the outer shell is removed.
my brother and I spent 3 summers following Can-Am all over NE North America, from our local tracks of Mosport and Mount Tremblant to 8 hour drives to tracks such as Road America. You got incredibly close to these monsters at most tracks, and what you saw and heard was barely contained violence at incredible speeds. Plus, the cars were beautiful, especially McLaren. No other form of racing has gripped me like that in all these years. The pinnacle to us was the Bruce and Denny Show.
I got to see a few CanAm races at Watkins Glen and Ste Jovite and never forgot them. This was a brilliant video -- thank you!
At 15:15 you said the Chaparral 2H was the first to have a composite chassis. The 1st Chaparral 2 had a fiberglass monocoque chassis and only later did he use aluminum (2E I believe and Hap Sharp called it the eyeball shaker). Hall attributed using fiberglass enabled quick repairs for minor accidents.
Jim Hall and Colin Chapman were the giants of race car innovation in that time period. It's been just evolutionary since.
Putting Jim Hall and Colin Chapman in the same sentence is sacrilege!
@DennisMerwood-xk8wp To whom do you think it is a sacrilege? I'm a big fan of Chunky but my vote is Hall. So many of his innovations found their way to a Lotus years after Hall had developed them!
@@grunewaj
Jim Hall did not design his best Chapparals.
His best cars, like the Indy 2k were designed by Englishman John Barnard
The 2K was a Formula One-inspired ground effect Indy car designed by Barnard
For which Jim Hall has always shamelessly accredited himself with designing.
He was known for taking credit of the work of his employees.
Read John Barnards biography. "The Perfect Car: The story of John Barnard, Formula 1’s most creative designer.'
"So many of his innovations found their way to a Lotus years after Hall had developed them!" Name one please. Thanks.
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp It is true that Hall had a lot of help (few know how much) from GM. I certainly don't have any inside information on that. I can't say that he was 100% responsible for all the things that went on Chaparrals but given the loyalty of his crew, I doubt he took a lot of credit for anything they did.
I know Barnard designed the 2K. I don't consider that the best Chaparral. Like you say, it was a copy and possibly improved Lotus 79 built for Indy. I take nothing from Barnard. He was a brilliant designer. For the record, if by best we mean the most successful, that would go to the 2C. It was the first of his revolutionary cars. If we mean best by most influential, that might go to the 2E. Every successful race car had wings after it.
Chapman was brilliant too. He had probably more major innovations in F1 than anybody till after he died. He also had a propensity to build fragile cars. I think that is a substantial strike against him.
As for innovations that Hall/Chaparral developed that ended up on Lotuses (or other F1 cars later:
1. wings (Lotus was about 2 years late on wings and didn't do a very good job with them and almost caused the death of Rindt)
2. side mounted radiators (used by all F1 teams but years after Chaparral used them)
3. active suspension (Lotus' was certainly much more advanced and sophisticated and Williams beyond Lotus)
4. composite monocoque (the 2C was the first car with a composite monocoque at a time when most cars in his class were space frame construction)
5. modular wheels
6. flipper (before wings, the 2C had a flipper that increased downforce and added to braking in the turns and was feathered for low drag in the straights - sort of like the current F1 DRS system).
8. skirts for ground effects
Awesome video! Love the series and I would love to see you talk about McLarens, Shadows and Lolas too, your videos are always so interesting and I am learning something new every time!
One thing that you missed is the fact that the McLaren CanAm team was the first to demonstrate aerodynamically generated downforce with the under body. That doesn't show up in pictures but the engineers had pressure ports installed in their test cars and verified negative pressure in testing. They had a bit of celebration and then zipped their mouths about it.
Porsche learned tourbocharging from Penske and Mark Donahue who had been racing turbocharged engines since 1970. Turbocharging was a thing in Indy racing since 1967 and won most pavement races from 1968 on. When the Penske team was brought on to Porsche's CanAm program they were surprised as the level of Porsche's knowledge and how much they could teach them about making turbocharging work.
Jim Hall got most of his best ideas from advanced engineering at Chevrolet. They could not race it by company rules but they rolled the test items out the back door for Hall to work with. I would say that he had to do much work getting the concepts to the racetrack but the 2H was the exception as a car that Hall initiated.from scratch. If you wish to learn more then find a copy of "Chevrolet Racing?" By Paul Van Valkenburgh published 1972. Also the Chaparral Indy car was copied off the Lotus 78 design and Hall never would acknowledge that which was one of the reason Al Unser and Hall parted ways after Unser drove the car it's first year. I suppose PR is designed to be self serving but the claims made in the early 1980's by Hall Racing were beyond the normal in the twisting of the truth.
This one of the BEST CanAm documentaries I've ever watched ! Great in depth details of the various engineering aspects of several cars ! This gives us the perspective of how the engineers and designers thought and developed these techno road rockets ! A shame that the series was ended because it was the fast track towards brilliant innovations ! Hats off to this site and the subject !
“Rattlesnake Raceway” was the Chaparral factory’s test loop right on the property. It wasn’t a track open to anyone else.
The chaparral cars and the McLaren M8C are some of my favorite historic race cars of all time
All the papaya cars.
Can-Am was the pinnacle motorsports venue. Innovation over rules made it a real mans race series!
Was Can-Am also known as Group 7? I have a book called Group 7 and these cars are in it. Also I got to watch the 917/K Porsche run at Riverside in a Vintage Car race. Riverside closed it's doors with the 917/K still holding the track speed record. Thanks for the presentation, it brings back memories of some fantastic cars.
yes group 7 aka "interserie"
YES, PLEASE, MORE CAN AM VIDS, LOVE THIS STUFF!!!
My first Can-Am race when I was six years old was mid Ohio 1971. Welcome to sports car racing kid. It will never be this good ever again.
917/30 Porsche was the best by a mile. 1580hp in qualifying. Weighed 800kg. 0-60 in 2.2sec, top speed of 250mph.
And ruined the CANAM series!
And today you can buy an air conditioned stereo equipped 4-door passenger sedan for under $90,000 that will match or beat that 2.2 seconds right out of the showroom, electronically limited to a top speed of "only" 200MPH by the manufacturer due to tire concerns. Amazing progress over the years.
And the frame was inflated with nitrogen gas to stiffen the structure
@@philgiglio7922 Got a link proving that, Phil? I have never heard of that?
Was the 917/30 a space frame? Old school in 1974!
The McLarens and Lola's were state-of-the-art monocoques. Structural systems in which loads are carried by the external skin.
No tubular space frame, even inflated with nitrogen gas, can match the stiffness of a monocoque chassis.
Not even come close.
Those figures for HP are not correct. There are people who KNOW, who were present for dyno testing, that the upper end of the HP of the engine with FULL open turbo was around 2000HP easily. And anyone who thinks Mark never turned it up to full, is delusional, and we witnessed the extreme turbo-lag in person at Mid-Ohio. What should be the most famous quote in motorsports history: "I should be able to smoke the tires all the way around the track." ~ Mark Donahue to Porsche Engineers. The rest, of course is history.
My father was a lifelong motorsports fan like me and would tell anyone who would listen that the original CanAm series was hands down the most interesting and exciting form of road racing ever. Thank you for this awesome video!
I think that footage between 12:36 to 12:51 is footage from the event at Mid-Ohio that year. That looks exactly like the S section that is corner 4, 5, and 6.
The CanAm started as a short season after the F1 season was ending. The last 3 f1 races were in North America (Canada, US, Mexico). They changed the series to last the whole year, creating a conflict with F1. The Tasman series in New Zealand and Australia raced over the winter in the northern hemisphere when F1 wasn't racing. All the races in 1968 were won by F1 drivers. That year Clark won 4 races, Amon 2, and McLaren and Courage one each.
Jim Hall's operation was tightly coupled with Chevrolet engineering. At this time GM, then the world's largest car manufacturer, had officially left racing. Unofficially, they were engineering the Chaparral race cars. Hall also raced Chevy Camaros in the 1970 Trans Am series.
So you are telling me that Speed Racer (Meteoro) was real 😅
The Batmobile was real though, there are drivable versions of multiple Batmobiles from over the years
Speed racer was from the late 60s, around the time of Can-am cars and the time where the sports prototypes reached over 200 mph, it was inspired by these sports.
so glad the somewhat neglected & forgotten CAN-AM series inspired you to make this video!
TOP-SHELF racing history. Many thanks!
I love this series. First time I got real exposure to it was when my dad got me a DVD called the Can Am the Speed Odyssey. Seeing all these cool cars the rapid changes they went through from season to season with Jim Hall and Chaparral leading the way in outside the box thinking. Shame they didn't have more success. From a financial and safety standpoint I can see why a series like this more than likely will never return since it can get out hand really quickly, but I do wish there was a spiritual successor.
I think that is where most of the stock footage came from, even though it is attributed to random youtube channels. There was also "the heavies"
Excellent video. I also wanted to chime in and say you and Nate did a superb job at the Off-Road Games. Very capable vehicle, driver, and spotter. It was great to watch you.
11:10, there's a hill climb car being made now with 4 S1000RR engines
I think that'd be a hell of a lot easier now (but still complicated) thanks to electronics.
@@callummclachlan4771 yeah, I'm very excited to see what it can actually do
Very good video, nice job. I'm an old guy in his sixties; my childhood and the decade of the sixties are essentially the same time period. I was fascinated by cars as a boy, becoming interested in racing in the mid sixties. So the Can Am series got my attention! I thought it was fantastic, with the awesome cars (too bad the word is overused), and the attraction to the series of the top international drivers of the time.
With that, I am stunned seeing the story of the "Mac's IT Special". Aside from being a fantastically unique design, in all the years since my youth and the prime of Can Am, this is the first I can remember ever seeing or knowing anything at all about that car! This is astonishing... not just the car itself, but the fact that in a half century or so, I have never known of this!
Of course, that could be a whole weird story, that car. Some things are obvious, like, for one example, how do you deal with trying to somehow synchronize all four engines? Imagine trying to drive a racing car when, at any throttle position, you have an engine attached to each wheel with all four turning at different slightly RPM. Yow!
Jim Hall was a boyhood hero, with the story of being an American driver who also designed and built his cars, and then, making those engineering marvels, every step of the way. I was lucky to actually meet him briefly in the paddock after the 1995 CART Cleveland race, finding myself standing face to face with the man himself, just the two of us. Sadly, a real regret, I missed a chance to actually talk a bit, for at least a minute or two, for the simple reason that, finding myself three feet away from him face to face, my mind was swirling with so many things that I kind of stupidly blanked out about what to say, and I just got him to scrawl his name on something (especially stupid, in my mind afterward, as I think autographs are kind of silly and pointless... I have no idea if I still have that somewhere).
One minor thing- as there was talk in the video about a car running one time at Laguna Seca (around 12:30), we see old footage of Mid-Ohio in olden days, not Laguna Seca. That was cool, anyway. It's interesting to see that, an old look at what is a favorite track, the closest major road course in my part of the world. (For a bit of perspective for an Englishman, a place I kind of regard as something like the Brands Hatch of America, a great circuit that's kind of like someone laid out a racing track in a park.)
Jim Hall did NOT design his cars. He just took the credit for the cars designed by his employees.
Without meaning any disrespect to Jim Hall, it bears mentioning that he had a lot of assistance - both financial and engineering - from Chevrolet. Along similar lines, the Chaparral 2K Indy car shown briefly at the end of this video was designed largely by John Barnard, not Hall (though the latter implies otherwise).
yea I dont imagine him being able to do this himself.
But he must have been a good race car designer to convince a big corporation to invest in him - he brought them a great deal of exposure.
Jin Hall told Barnard that a condition of his employment was that he was to always say that he, Hall, designed the cars.
John soon quit ~ after designing the groundbreaking Chaparral 2K ground effects Indy car .
Hall always wanted to take all the credit. Huge ego!
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp Claims without Proof = highly suspect ego ! 😞 [Like Games without Frontiers - more without fears] On this I-Net, specifically this platform anyone can make their baseless claims without fears {Jim will never know nor challenge nor John]
Good Luck -> Bye Bye
Tested our LR 01 Indy Car there in 1980 with Al Unser Sr. ( Longhorn Racing) Lots of Rattlesnakes everywhere!!
Awesome video,loved it. Not to crazy with unnecessary information, but you were able to still pack a good amount of the interesting stuff in. You hit the Goldie Locks, just right. Thank you and keep 'em coming
I, like many other youngsters, were doing slot car racing at slot car tracks and I remember the one on College Avenue in Berkeley (California) or Oakland maybe, had a man there running the place who built his own. He put weights on the rear wing so when the car was braking it came up and these little model cars running with metal brushes in a slot in the smooth track would just fly ! Even the Chapparal that I had by Matel or whoever made it, was pretty fast. I think there are actually slot car tracks still in operation somewhere in the usa. Thanks Driver for the video. My cousin and I went to Laguna Seca a time or two, not sure what we watched it's been so long. Can Am cars were always my favorite to watch on tv must have been where I saw them.
Classic had a slot car named the stinger that used the decelleration of the motor to lift a rear panal on top to serve as an air brake. I grew up in Berkeley and the older kids would go to the slot car track in Berkeley Oakland boarder. My parents would take me to the one at Playland at the Beach which had a huge track. I wish I still had my slot cars.
Excellent video. I especially appreciate the emphasis on Chaparral. I was a kid when this series was on and I was fascinated by Chaparral. They always had the coolest cars.
I would love there to be a truly unlimited class of road racing, where any type of technology was allowed, and there is no such thing as "too fast". Professional drivers are just that - professionals. If they want to take the risks, that is their choice. Let the engineers run the show!
Mate, PLEASE give us more of these! I could watch You HOURS going on about these. Very exiting creations. Dangerous, maybe, too but very exiting.
Especially the 4 twostroke engine car. I love twostrokes (but not very much two stroke stuffing)
Can-am is by far the greatest racing series of all time. I was lucky enough to get to see 4 shadow can-am cars race at road america last year.
My Boss and good friend drove the Mclaren Can-Am M8E here in Australia and it still holds the unofficial lap record at our local track.
The Porsche 917/30 was amazing too, it had a flat 12, aircooled, only 2 valves per cylinder and had an air pressure gauge fitted to the chassis with a gas inside, if the chassis developed a crack, you would see the gauge pressure fall off to let you know.
I love Can-Am too, amazing stuff.
The Chaparrals didn't have automatic transmissions, but had a torque converter in place of a clutch. The thinking was being able to use gearboxes with fewer gears. It is correct that they did not have a clutch pedal.
Many thanks for the fine video on the engineering behind these great Can-Am cars. I always thought Jim Hall's cars were amazing even though I was huge McLaren fan. Please make more videos on the Can-Am series. Cheers!!!!
This is the kind of racing I would actually watch. Modern racing is insanely boring.
I think this might be more boring than current racing as whoever has the best engineered car could be out front the entire race.
If by modern racing you mean f1 yeah they are boring, but i dont think touring and gt cars are boring to watch at all
We should return to the Speed Racer era.
I think this is better engineering than F1 today, but not better racing.
WSBK ist good
This is a very interesting video of what was going on with the Can-Am racing back in the 60's & 70's... Thank You for posting this...
Another interesting tidbit I've heard about the 2j is that it had a 3 speed automatic (at least, I think it was an auto) gearbox to keep the car from pitching back and forth too much when changing gears, which caused it to have crazy long gearing that made its acceleration slower than it could have achieved otherwise
As an aside I'd love to see a modern can-am, but perhaps with spending limits on the cars to prevent the sport from spiralling out of control with costs and ensure smaller teams have a better chance of competing, and have modern safety standards of course, but other than that keep the spirit of minimal rules from can-am alive
But alas, even if it did happen, I don't think we'd see quite the same level of creativity and madness from that halcyon era, and people like me pining for a return would be eternally disappointed
It actually had a manual gearbox, but used a torque converter instead of a clutch!! That left the driver able to use his left foot on the wing control pedal!! AWESOME!!! 😃
@@johnbutera5805 it seems the websites claiming it's an automatic need updating as their information is wrong
You're correct of course that it used a clutchless design with a torque converter, but it seems it's a bit more interesting even than that if I'm understanding it correctly, as it's somewhat of a precursor to the semi-automatic designs seen in modern racecars, which is pretty neat, considering that its contemporaries were still very much wedded to fully manual gearboxes
Cheers for the comment clarifying in any case! I learned something new about this awesome beast
@@PaulTheFox1988 If I remember correctly, it used a torque converter, but it was definitely a manual shifted tranny with dog gears instead of synchros, typical for a racing transmission. Because of the slip in the torque converter, all the driver had to do was slightly back off the throttle to unload the gears, shift as quickly as possible, then BANG!!! back on the gas!! 😃
I'd love to see a series where the only rules are "the driver must be safe" and "the budget is capped", and let the engineers go wild
I love how comical he did it 23:32
I had heard of Shadow, and Chapparal, but I grew up in a motor racing family, with my father having once long before I was born, worked for John Surtees, among many other famous names. I actually race in a Can Am series regularly in slot car racing, where my preferred car is a Lola on a metal chassis, so this is a fun video to watch and learn more about the wild and outlandish things the Can Am manufacturers and teams tried in their pursuits of victory.
A racing series that actually sounds interesting to watch?! Why is this not a thing now?
We have decades of new racing knowledge that we could incorporate into a new series
I’ve seen and felt these cars in action at Silverstone Classic. It is a thunderous spectacle. Can seriously recommend the whole event
Imagine what sort of cars we'd be looking on the streets, were there no technical inspection rules 😅
There arent in most of Am3ric4
@@piccalillipit9211 there are 195 countries other than america
@@rideepicdriveepicweird reply
@@piccalillipit9211 i find it weird that some think the world revolves around america
@@rideepicdriveepic- I dont - I mostly loath Am3ric4. I was just pointing out a fact that they don't have technical test in most states - which partially accounts for why they unalive in cars 12 X more often than Europeans.
But what it does not result in - apparently - are lots of amazing cars. They just drive death traps.
I was born in 73 and all the toy cars I had were of Can-Am cars. While I never got to watch one of their races, the series did impact my youth. What a magnificent era of motorsports.
6:35 - That's allot of unsprung weight. Less unsprung weight means faster acting suspension to keep tire in contact with the track over bumps. example - Lotus 72's inboard brakes.
No, not at all. The force from the wing is only pushing downwards and not adding a ton of mass to the wheeIs.
It has the same effect on the wheels as normal mounted wing would have, you just bypass the cars suspension and thus the need to make that unwanted stiff.
Also they could make that out of fiberglass so it's not much of an issue. Nowhere near the weight of 2 rotors.
This warms my heart, seeing long over due, respect for the incredible Jim Hall!
He was like a Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman hybrid..
Excellent content, 61!
John Barnard designed all the successful Chapparals. Jim Hall just shamelessly took all the credit.
To put him in the same sentence as Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman is sacrilege.
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp LOL!
@@lll9416 You disagree? Google "The Perfect Car": The Biography of John Barnard by Nick Skeens
We need more videos on Can Am
I love your channel & subject matter in this case. During the 1980's I worked for Lee Hurley(HESCO) & Charlie Cook(Southwind Enterprises) At both shops we did quite a bit of "Creative Engineering" and as far as I know it was never discovered by Tech Inspectors. Hidden nitrous, strut tower mods for camber/caster, windshield angles, titanium used in place of chrome moly roll cage,acid dipping,filling driver's helmet with lead to pass post race weight inspection etc..
The 917 did not kill can am. The 1973 oil crisis, regulations and a lack of a sponsor for the prize money did.
Very nicely done! At Canepa Motorsports Mark Donohue is quoted saying “the 917-10 is the only car I have ever driven that will spin the tires at 200 mph”
What happens when there are “no rules” ?? Excitement, innovation, men pushing themselves and the envelope !!! Today you have rule strangled racing of all venues where the car has become secondary at best and the focus has turned to cookie cutter drivers, and sponsors names shoved down our throats over and over. Today’s Motorsports are dying and rightly so !! Nothing but a giant bore 👎🏼👎🏼
There’s a few Can Am cars in Forza Motorsport. I just happened to be playing around with Chaparral 2E when this video dropped. I love doing Free Races at The Nürburgring with the Can Am cars.
Fast-forward to 03:20 to skip the repetitious intro.
Fascinating stuff, Scott. You need to do another Can-Am episode in the future!
I had the opportunity to see the Can-Am cars and the Chaparrals a few years ago at Laguna Seca.
Jim Hall is an unspoken of hero of motor racing, a very creative and innovative mind.!!
All these are indeed amazing cars!!
Love your channel and have been watching this channel for years! All your videos are very informative and entertaining! Keep up the great work!
I had two friends who ran Can Am. One was Dick Durant and the other Bob Klempel. While the idea of no rules so that the "if you can dream it, you can run it" thought prevails, the cost factors become prohibitive. Eventually, he who has the most money wins. And that is how Porsche won.
Dick's wife Judy said that like all their racing venues, they were keeping track of the costs at first, then realized it was so insane, they really didn't want to know. Dick had also said that he realized he needed to up his homeowner's insurance because the night he brought the Lola home, he had doubled the value of his home.
Thanks for making this episode. Legendary class and one of my favorite periods in racing history 👏🏻
Cracking video mate. Keep making content, your a natural. Both got kicked out 😂... had no idea a patrol could move that fast, let alone fo a wheelie.
Have only just got myself a GQ TI patrol... would never imagined that people were doing this with the big girls.
Thanks for sharing.
This is awesome with the oldschool racecar version and design's. Really ahead of time and technology, and still used today different
BRILLIANT! subscribed!! .002 seconds - these cars were all my childhood fantasies - mostly from 1/64th (HO) scale slot cars! They made all of the can am cars in one kit or another - thank you for doing this video and please do more!
Fantastic video. Really fascinating to hear about these bonkers cars. That Porsche is crazy. Basically like driving a 1200hp go cart 😬
Exceptional idea. Great story telling. Keep up with the technical and the weird. You have created a great format. I love it.
This was a nice walk down memory lane! I grew up watching the can am series... 😂
My dad grew up going to Watkins Glen when F1, can am, and others would race there.... 😢
Seen a few of these cars up close at Goodwood FOS. They're terrifying standing still! Cannot imagine lamping it round a track in the 60s/70s. The sound is glorious however ❤
Yes more please! I just missed the the Can-Am glory years by just a few years. Being born in 75 by the time I really got into racing in the mid 80s Can-Am was pretty much done. I remember hearing about how bonkers the cars were in the 70s and I wish that I had gotten the chance to see them them in action.
Growing up in Brainerd Minnesota I was fortunate enough to live at a time when Donnybrook, later to become Brainerd international Raceway was born and saw the first series of Can-Am races ever held there, all the film cannot even come close to describing what it was like actually being at one of those races And seeing what it truly was, it was beyond awe inspiring. It was a trip into another world. I’m only sad that people can no longer experience that in this form of motorsport.
I am sure teenager Adrian Newey was constantly feeding himself with those great ideas back in the late 60s
Born in 57, grew up watching Can-am and Trans-am. Penske Camaros and Halls Chaparrals were my favorites. Started drag racing in 73 with a 69 Z/28 and l'm still building my own 302s. No small block has that sound and nothing will ever sound as powerful as a big block chevy in a Can-am car at full song. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Shame most new gearheads will never know.
The 917 was the most spectacular sports rating car I ever saw. In 1970 as a 17 year old kid, two motor Journalists in a Honda N600 test car took me to Brands Hatch for the BOAC 500 mile race. The weather was atrocious and at the end of the first lap we had to run for cover as a black Lola T70 was spinning towards us as we (journalists) were just leaving the starting line. But to watch Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen lap after lap hurtling down the main straight with the car briefly wiggling every time they shifted from 3rd to 4th was an amazing sight. At that time Rodriguez was the world's best driver in the wet. Needless to say they won. The car really was revolution and over time a number of drivers acquired the skill to handle them successfully.
F1 had one dalliance with negative-pressure fans (well, one fan) with the Brabham BT46 ‘fan car’. Pressure from other teams made sure the affair was short. The principle complaint was that the huge rear fan picked up any debris from the track and hurled it at high speed at any following car.
This was a very enjoyable video to watch I loved this Era even if I missed it I still have fond memories of watching F1 with my uncles in the 80s.
I read an article about the McLaren Can-Am car in about 1971 (I was about 15). Great diagrams. I remember two things--the 494 cubic inch engine (Chevy I think), and that the engine without manifolds would fit in a cubical box 24" on a side.
I’m 60 and grew up watching this series at Mid-Ohio and Road America . Met Mark Donahue after he won Mid-Ohio in the 917-30, he was very nice, his mother was there as well.
Love ya work... Subscribed today... Keep the vids coming and more can am if poss.... It's hard to see old can am races and info so u r filling a hole in my motorsport knowledge... Thank u
It's the 'creative silliness' that makes Can-Am just so human. Something that is seriously lacking in modern autosports.
Slap a massive elevated wing on? Let's try it!
Build a petrifying big chonker with 1100 HP? No problem!
A spaceship on 4 wheels? We'll roll with it man!
Grew up in Monterey California and went to the can-am series at Laguna Seca many times with the family as a kid. Can't miss the cork-screw in some of the clips shown here. As you stated, Mclaren was the big name to beat back then and the cars were strange compared to everything else racing out there at the time. Beatle-powered formula V was popular too. I remember can-am as being comically wide, low and very flat. The cars looked huge on the track at times. I remember the vacuum car as it created controversy that appeared in our local news paper. Allegedly, it ejected small rocks that it vacuumed up off the track and shot them into the faces and cars of drivers behind it, (so they claimed),. Probably no loose gravel on the track after it showed up - very clean. I remember only seeing it one year then it was gone supposedly due to politics is what we'd heard. Don't remember the two-stroke car though. Sure wish I did. Love that stuff. The way the series vanished was strange to some of us kids as it had been such a big thing and we'd bought slot car models of them to race. They race in the vintage series at laguna once in a while I've heard. Cheers.
I looked up the engines used in the Mac's IT Special and they made 110 hp, so four of them is a total of 440 and given what the engines in the other cars produced, it was just underpowered. Which is a wild thing to say about a car from 1970 with 440 horsepower. Be interesting to see what it could've done if it actually had enough power to be competitive.
My guess would be way too heavy too, isnt it? Always much more efficient to have one big volume enclosed than having 4 smaller ones. So lots of weight from the 4 engines with not that much power