Retro Scene Mag recently got the chance to spend some time talking to Robert Nevison the man behind Can Am - The Speed Odyssey, a film about the history of Can Am racing that will be out this summer. We got the chance to get behind the scenes of the inspiration for the DVD and fill our boots with information about the racing series it covered.
Origins of the DVD
One of Robert's first experiences of motor racing was the Can Am racing series when he was a young boy, the ground shaking spectacle of these thunderous racing cars stuck with him through childhood, all the way up until the present day where he finds himself in the position of movie maker. The current projects germination was at the Canadian Grand Prix a few years ago when Can Am was one of the support races, it rekindled the fire of interest. Looking around Robert found that he wasn't the only one that desired a quality xxxxx documentary of this race series, being in a position to do something about it work began.
Unlike today where television coverage of motorsport is very wide spread at all levels the 60's and 70's period of Can Am racing had much less in the way of television coverage, whilst there was syndicated coverage of the series the 16mm films were spread across a number of different archives and Robert had to do a lot of hunting, in total he used 12 different sources for the film, having viewed pretty much all the film footage of the series available. It was a lot of work to locate all the footage, which dates from 1965 until the end of the series in 1973, but Robert’s previous work on the F1 On Board film has given him some great contacts to call on.
The audio was very carefully mastered as the sounds of the cars is very important, so if you have a suitable sound system you can experience the ground shaking sounds of 8 litre V8s.
Providing commentary for the DVD are Sam Posey, Can Am driver and veteran sports commentator along with Jim Hall, Can Am driver and team owner/designer of the legendary Chaparral Can Am cars.
What was Can Am?
It might be worth an explanation of what makes Can Am so special for those of you not familiar with the series. Running in the USA from 1966 the Can Am series was what some of us dream of now days, an almost unregulated series where car engineers were allow to go almost as far as their brilliance could take them. For example, the engine had to be a larger than 2.5 litres and no gas turbines powered cars were allowed, in 1970 more regulation was bought in, but it was still a very free series, particularly on a technical level. People like
Jim Hall, as early as 1964 developed the monocoque chassis construction and wings on his Chaparral race cars, inspiring people like Colin Chapman. Bruce McLaren was able to produce racing cars that were faster than the F1 cars of the time. You can see the innovations being used for the first time in the film. By the time the series stopped in 1973 there were cars like the twin turbo charged Porsche 917-30, pushing out 1,100 bhp with masses of torque and huge amounts of downforce, it could accelerate from 0 to 200mph in 10 seconds with a top speed of 250mph. It was this immense speed that, like Group B after it, meant that Can Am became too fast for the tracks it was running on.
Luckily for us though the series continues to thrive in historic racing, with a number of events across the year in the USA, as well as events in Europe, including the HSCC Historic Superprix at Brands Hatch. If you have the chance to go and see these cars racing in the flesh make sure you do it.
If all this sounds like the sort of thing that would be right up your street, and frankly if it’s not we fear for your sanity, then go and check out the trailer here at
www.canamfilm.com . The DVD will be out in Europe over the summer and is a
must purchase for any discerning car enthusiast.