Well, be confused no longer! I have put together a nice list of them and what
makes each one special. Everything from the “dainty” M1A through the
monsterous M20 with its 8.3L Chevy V8. How can you not love these cars?
Crazy amounts of power, insane aero, and super light weight, sounds like fun
to me. So shall we begin?
I guess the best place to start is from the beginning. Right? So this is the
Mclaren M1A. It is the .rst car Mclaren ever made. Before that, Mclaren
campaigned modi.ed Cooper chassis. This was a Mclaren chassis from the
start, a steel tubular space frame. The car was originally going to have a 2.7L
4-banger. Thank god they didn’t go that route because as we all know Can-am
is about excess and extravagance. So they opted for a 3.5L Buick V8, which
was later made to displace 4.5L making a nice 310hp. Alright so it isn’t the
8.3L 750hp beasts, but this is just the start. Strangly some of the M1As came
with a spare tire, which would be required for a car to race in Can-am. Lets
get away from the specs a bit and look at the car, as that is the best way to
differentiate them!
This is one of the customer cars. The chassis were built by Elva and were
essentially the same as the factory cars. Basically they had headlights and the
Mclaren version didn’t. You could also spec out your car with whatever engine
