Racing series are governed by rules, and it's largely the difference between those rules that distinguish one series from another. Not Can-Am, though. Can-Am had virtually no rules – at least not as far as the cars were concerned. And McLaren positively dominated.
While the team was just getting started in Formula One, it was absolutely spanking the competition in the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, showing the likes of Porsche, Lola, and Chaparral how it was done.
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing (as the team was then known) won the championship five years running between 1967 and 1971. In 1969 it won every last race on the calendar – and that was the longest season in the championship's history. In fact McLaren came to dominate the series so completely that it became known as “the Bruce and Denny show,” in reference to the team's top drivers – Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme.
Bruce died behind the wheel of one of his Can-Am racers in 1970 while testing at Goodwood. In the wake of his death, the team he founded withdrew from the series to focus on F1. But some of the cars they made for Can-Am are still out there. Like this one that's coming up for auction.
A 1966 McLaren M1B, this was one of the earliest Can-Am racers, with the series only having started that year. 28 of them were made, and this one's been painstakingly restored and maintained to the point that it's not only cosmetically intact, but ready and eager to turn its wheel in anger in historic racing events. The Chevy small-block has been replaced by a 5.7-liter Ford V8 built by Pantera Performance out of Colorado with an aluminum block, dry sump, and Weber carbs, kicking out over 500 horsepower through a Hewland transxaxle.
RM Sotheby's is set to auction it off in Monterey next month, where it expects it will sell for about $250,000 (give or take $25k). That's less than a new 720S, which is undoubtedly one of the finest road-going supercars McLaren has ever made. But the chance to own one of the manufacturer's earliest Can-Am racers – and drive it on track whenever the mood strikes – could prove even more tempting.
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