Time travelling

It’s normal, I think, for most of us to wish we were a little younger. There is, though, one reason why I wish I were older — Can-Am. Andretti, Surtees, Stewart, Brabham, Revson, Gurney, Cevert, McLaren, Foyt and Hulme. BRM, Shadow, Chaparral, Porsche, Ferrari, March, Ford and Lola. Huge wings and ultrawide wheels, fan-generated ground effect, four-wheel drive, turbochargers and superchargers. And I’m too young to have been there to watch the cars on track…

This issue, we celebrate 40 years of Can-Am (in a 10-page feature starting on page 34) by visiting the anniversary event at Road America to bring you George Follmer’s stories about lapping circuits quicker than his F1 contemporaries. And we get behind the wheel of a 1972 Can-Am Shadow Mark III.

Our special fold-out feature series continues (on page 65), with a studio shoot of a Porsche 956. It’s the car that came third in the 1982 Le Mans 24 Hours and then went on to score a string of other podium finishes around the world. Motor Sport has also uncovered some evocative photographs and a great story about a 1960s Shell ad campaign, using three GT4Os at Monza (p80), and we look back to Rolls-Royce’s only GP win in 1913 (p102).

Maybe wanting to have watched that is taking it a little too far.