The heyday of the North American Can Am Championship (for unlimited displacement sports-racing cars) was the late sixties. It was inaugurated in 1966 when the victor was John Surtees driving a naturally aspirated Chevrolet V8-powered Lola T70. Then came the years of domination by McLaren again using pushrod Chevrolet engines with McLaren himself, Denny Hulme and Peter Revson taking titles through to 1971. After that Porsche came in with a pioneering turbocharged twelve cylinder sledgehammer derived from its (naturally aspirated) contemporary Le Mans car.
The McLaren years were characterised by a wide variety of mostly Chevrolet-powered contenders, some innovative to the extreme. Meantime Lotus was busy innovating in Formula One and owner Colin Chapman couldn’t resist looking at the vibrant (and lucrative) Can Am arena. He commissioned what would have been the Lotus Type 66 for the 1970 series but in the end the demands of Formula One meant that the project didn’t progress beyond technical drawings and scale models by noted designer Geoff Ferris.
That stillborn project has now been revived by Lotus through its new Lotus Advanced Performance division. Using material from the company’s extensive archive this operation specifically aims to bring to life a number of the marque’s projects that fell by the wayside, of which the Type 66 is the first example. The recently announced limited edition of just ten Can Am recreations uses contemporary materials and techniques to create a fascinating blend of original and current technology.
The Type 66 would have shared the contemporary Formula One Type 72’s distinctive wedge shape and side radiators. Modern touches include carbon fibre bodywork and a sequential change gearbox. Had the car raced it would have deployed the ubiquitous Chevrolet V8. Today’s track-only revival is powered by an undisclosed pushrod V8 that Lotus describes a“period-representative”. This is understood to be based on a naturally aspirated Chevrolet crate motor. Lotus is claiming maximum power of at least 830 bhp at 8800 rpm and maximum torque of at least 550 lb ft at 7400rpm. The Type 66 will thus revive the memorable thunder of the Can Am in its heyday.