Can-Am at 60: celebrating McLarens, Lolas and Porsche 917s at Laguna Seca

It wasn’t entirely no holds barred, but the original Can-Am race series wasn’t far from being a free-for-all in terms of eligible cars. That meant some of the wildest-looking, most radically engineered and most powerful competition machines ever to take to the track, notably the legendary Porsche 917/30 ‘Turbopanzer’ which dominated the series in 1973 – helped by an engine capable of producing more than 1500bhp.

One of the highlights of this year’s Monterey Motorsports Reunion will be a celebration of 60 years since Can-Am was inaugurated in a joint effort by the Sports Car Club of America and the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs. The two bodies had to lay down some rules but they agreed to keep them as simple as possible in order to attract a wide range of entries and to allow a large variety of often wildly different cars to compete under the same umbrella.

Being run under the FIA’s Group 7 category meant no restrictions on engine capacity and the freedom to use forced induction and bolt on as many wings as a designer wished – so all a Can-Am car really needed to meet the rules were two seats and four wheels that were enclosed by its bodywork. As a result, Can-Am produced some technically pioneering and radical-looking cars which created a spectacle of speed, power and sound like no other race series before or since.

Despite being killed off in its original form in 1974 due to a combination of the ongoing oil crisis, soaring costs and a mediocre season the year before, Can-Am is still remembered for providing nine years of wonderfully raucous racing between stars such as Bruce McLaren, Parnelli Jones, Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney, and for putting marques including Chaparral and Lola on the map.

The 60th anniversary celebration at Laguna Seca will bring together around 30 cars which raced in the original Can-Am series, among which will be a 1970 McLaren M8D ‘Batmobile’ that was campaigned by Dan Gurney and Peter Gethin. Gurney raced the papaya car three times, taking the chequered flag on two occasions – at Mosport Park and Mont-Tremblant – while Gethin drove it to victory at Road America.

Look out, too, for the unique Sting GW1 from 1974, the series’ last year. Built for wealthy rancher Gary Wilson, it was the largest Can-Am to take to the track and combined a big block Chevrolet engine with four-speed Hewland transmission, a one-off aluminium monocoque and McLaren suspension.

A 1970 Lola T70 Mk3B, meanwhile, further demonstrates some of the ingenuity that went into Can-Am builds. In his 1975 book The Unfair Advantage, driver Mark Donohue recalled how the fitting of giant side draft Weber carburettors in the pursuit of more power necessitated a pair of ‘pontoon-shaped’ cold air boxes to be bolted to either side of the rollbar. The car will appear at the anniversary event in its original, dark-blue Sunoco livery.