Feb 9
HVM McLaren M8E Restoration
At HVM Racing, the off-season is not vacation time. As well as developing our program for the upcoming season, we restore older race cars as well as perform modifications, such as building street legal Open Wheel race cars. We thought you might enjoy a look at some of these projects.
The first project we are going to show is the restoration of a McLaren 8E Can Am car. From 1968 to 1972 the McLaren M8 dominated Can Am, and unfortunately an accident in an M8D led to the untimely death of Bruce McLaren.
The Car we are Restoring is a 1971 McLaren M8E, Chassis #4, originally raced by Vic Elford for Roy Woods Racing in 1971. The “E” series were customer cars built By Trojan for McLaren. The works cars were designated as M8F. We hope you enjoy the photos of a truly magnificent piece of racing history.
Please feel free to share with us any recollections you have of Can Am historic cars, or just drop us a note to say “Hi”
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Props to the painter, he did a fantastic job.
Great photos…when’s the last time you saw an ignition coil on a racecar???
There’s another one of these, a customer car with no tag, in a shop about 5 minutes from me.
That looks like a BIG block…what engine?
Andy, during that period McLaren was using Chevy engines for their Can Am cars. I will see if I can dig up some specs.
“…the M6A had used 5.8-¬litre Chevrolet V8s with 520bhp, the M8A went the whole way with 7-litre unit, developed by Gary Knutson.”
Prolly 427 Chevy. Let’s hear 22 of them on the gas!!!!!!!!
Andy, I quote Michael Cannon, “It’s an all-alloy, fuel injected 494 cu.in. Chevrolet Big Block. It makes 796 hp at 7500 rpm and God knows how much torque! Very much an “as in the day” motor.”
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