Chev Canam

CHEV CAN AM
Enjoy the 1973 Chevy CanAm Pics and History. As you'll see, this really is a rarity of a Classic. Suffice to say that only 100 of these were ever made and not in North America either, these rare Classics were built in South Africa.

In South Africa, Chevrolet was GM's main brand name until 1982, with a number of Vauxhall Motors and Holden derivatives being built under the Chevy name from 1964.

In the 1970s, the advertising jingle "braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet" (adapted from the US "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pies and Chevrolet" came to epitomise the ideal lifestyle of white male South Africans. Holden in Australia used the jingle "Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden cars". Originally, Chevrolets were CKD kits of US models assembled in their plant in Port Elizabeth.

However, since South Africa was right-hand drive and the US was left-hand drive, along with encouragement by the South Africans.

African government to use local content, Chevrolets such as the Biscayne were eventually made entirely in South Africa.

by the 1970s, larger South African Chevrolets were based on Australian General Motors-Holden's models, the Kommando being based on the Holden Kingswood and the Constantia on the Statesman, while the smaller Firenza was based on the Vauxhall Viva. The Chevrolet Nomad sold in South Africa was entirely different from the Nomad sold in America; whereas the American Nomad was originally conceived as a station wagon version of the Corvette and eventually became the station wagon version of the Bel Air, the South African Nomad was an SUV of truck proportions before SUVs were popular. Due to local content laws the cars usually received different engines than in their home markets.

However, these were replaced by Opel models like the Rekord, Commodore, and Senator, and in 1982 the Chevrolet brand name was dropped in favour of Opel. Because of the political climate at the time, GM decided to divest from South Africa in 1986, and a local group eventually bought out GM's South African operations (including the Port Elizabeth plant) and renamed the company as the Delta Motor Corporation, which concentrated on Opels, Isuzus, and Suzukis, built under licence.

However, thanks to an improved political climate in the 1990s, GM decided to reenter South Africa, eventually buying out the whole of Delta. In 2001, the Chevrolet name made a comeback, used on the Lumina, a rebadged Holden Commodore, and later on, on the Daewoo range of cars.

Current Chevrolets include the Spark (a rebadged Daewoo Matiz), Aveo, Optra, Cruze, the Lumina (including the Ute model), the Vivant, an MPV that is a rebadged version of the Daewoo Tacuma, and a pick-up version of the Opel Corsa known as the Corsa Ute.

Well we’re nearing the end of the year, and you’d think there would be a bit of a slow down in the hot cars, but that’s far from the truth. It seems our local chaps are not too bothered about shops closing or even the interest rate messing around with car builds. They just carry on doing what they love to do. Take the cover car for example. This Can-Am has had more than enough blood, sweat and tears poured into it, not to mention copious amounts of money. I think all the hard work has paid off though, the car looks insane, makes mad power and is still licensed for the street.

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup or Can-Am, was an SCCA/CASC sports car racing series from 1966 to 1986.

Can-Am started out as a race series for Group 7 sports racers with two races in Canada (Can) and four races in the United States of America (Am). The series was initially sponsored by Johnson Wax. The Series was governed by rules called out under the FIA Group 7 category with unrestricted engine capacity and few other technical restrictions.

The Group 7 category was essentially a formule libre for sports cars; the regulations were minimal and permitted unlimited engine sizes (and allowed turbocharging and supercharging), virtually unrestricted aerodynamics, and were as close as any major international racing series ever got to anything goes.

As long as the car had two seats and bodywork enclosing the wheels, and met basic safety standards, it was legal. Group 7 had arisen as a category for non-homologated sports car 'specials' in Europe and for a while in the 1960s Group 7 racing was popular in the United Kingdom as well as a class in hillclimb racing in Europe.

Group 7 cars were designed more for short-distance sprints than for endurance racing. Some Group 7 cars were also built in Japan by Nissan and Toyota, but these did not compete outside their homeland (though some of the Can-Am competitors went over to race against them occasionally).

SCCA sports car racing was becoming more popular with European constructors and drivers, and the United States Road Racing Championship for large-capacity sports racers eventually gave rise to the Group 7 Can-Am series. There was good prize and appearance money and plenty of trade backing; the series was lucrative for its competitors but resulted, by its end, in truly outrageous cars with well over 1000 horsepower (750 kW) (some teams claimed 1,500 hp (1,100 kW) in qualifying trim), wings, active downforce generation, very light weight and unheard of speeds. Similar Group 7 cars ran in the European Interserie series, but this was much lower-key than the Can-Am.

On-track, the series was initially dominated by Lola, followed by a period in which it became known as the 'Bruce and Denny Show', the works McLaren team dominating until the Porsche 917 was perfected and became almost unbeatable. After Porsche's withdrawal, Shadow dominated the last season before Can-Am faded away to be replaced by Formula 5000. Racing was rarely close - one marque was usually dominant - but the noise and spectacle of the cars made the series highly popular.

The energy crisis and the increased cost of competing in Can-Am meant that the series folded after the relatively lacklustre 1974 season; the single seater Formula 5000 series became the leading road-racing series in North America and many of the Can-Am drivers and teams continued to race in this. F5000's reign lasted for only two years, with a second generation of Can-Am following.

This was a fundamentally different series based initially on converted Formula 5000 cars with closed-wheel bodies. There was also a 2L class based on Formula Two chassis. The second incarnation of Can-Am faded away as IMSA and CART racing became more popular in the early 1980s but remained active until 1987.

Can-Am remains a well-remembered form of racing due to its popularity at the time, the spectacular cars and the lineup of talented drivers. Can-Am cars remain popular in historic racing.

Can-Am was the birth place and proving ground for (what was at the time) outrageous technology. Can-Am cars were among the first race cars to sport wings, effective turbocharging, ground-effect aerodynamics, and aerospace materials like titanium. This led to the eventual downfall of the original series when costs got very much out of hand, but during its height Can-Am cars were at the cutting edge of racing technology and were frequently as fast as or even faster around laps of circuits used by both series than their contemporary Formula One cars. Noted constructors in the Can-Am Series included McLaren, Chaparral, Lola, BRM, Shadow and Porsche.

The name was once again revived in 1998, when the United States Road Racing Championship broke away from IMSA. Their top prototype class was named Can-Am, but the series would fold before the end of 1999 before being replaced by the Grand American Road Racing Championship.

The Can-Am name would not be retained in the new series.Eventually, the GTPs would evolve into Le Mans Prototypes, the top class of the American Le Mans Series. While significantly different from Can Am series vehicles, LMPs provide a high performance prototype pioneering new technologies, but limited compared to their spiritual predecessors of Can-Am by regulations in the name of cost control and safety.



You can find Chevrolet Can-am Links Below,Enjoy and thankyou for visiting my Can-am Page.

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/chevrolet-firenza-can-am-south-africas-muscle-car/

http://www.cartorque.co.za/0318.htm

http://www.gumtree.co.za/f-chevy-Classifieds-W0QQKeywordZchevy

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/chevrolet-firenza-can-am-south-africas-muscle-car/
http://www.cartorque.co.za/0318.htm
http://www.gumtree.co.za/f-chevy-Classifieds-W0QQKeywordZchevy

Chev Canam

CHEV CAN AM Enjoy the 1973 Chevy CanAm Pics and History. As you'll see, this really is a rarity of a Classic. Suffice to say that only 100 of these were ever made and not in North America either, these rare Classics were built in South Africa.

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/chevrolet-firenza-can-am-south-africas-muscle-car/ http://www.cartorque.co.za/0318.htm http://www.gumtree.co.za/f-chevy-Classifieds-W0QQKeywordZchevy

CHEV CAN AM
Enjoy the 1973 Chevy CanAm Pics and History. As you'll see, this really is a rarity of a Classic. Suffice to say that only 100 of these were ever made and not in North America either, these rare Classics were built in South Africa.

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/chevrolet-firenza-can-am-south-africas-muscle-car/

http://www.cartorque.co.za/0318.htm

http://www.gumtree.co.za/f-chevy-Classifieds-W0QQKeywordZchevy