1968 McLaren M6B Can-Am Race Car

If you can hustle one of these babies around the track, nobody will ever question your manhood

by Thor Thorson

The Can-Am Series for unlimited sports cars began in 1966, and a year later Bruce McLaren won his first championship, driving a car bearing his own name. Teammate Denny Hulme was second, and for the next four years, the factory McLaren cars dominated, with either McLaren or Hulme taking the championship in each. Lola, Chaparral, Shadow, and even Ferrari made valiant challenges to McLaren’s supremacy, but to no avail. The M6B was an excellent design, the first monocoque chassis McLaren. It was strong, simple and an aerodynamically efficient package. The factory sold a number of replicas to eager privateers hoping to duplicate its success. Of course, this never quite happened, as the customer cars were always based on last year’s model, while the factory team raced the latest new and improved hardware. This car is said to have originally belonged to privateer racer Dick Brown of Detroit, who drove it in the 1968 and 1969 Can-Am seasons. It was then purchased...