page_title: Can-Am
section_title: Decline and revivals
hierarchical_section_title: Can-Am / Decline and revivals
caption_attribution_description: English: Al Holbert finished second in the 1982 Laguna Seca Can-Am race, driving a VDS-001.
context_page_description: The Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or Can-Am, was an SCCA/CASC sports car racing series from 1966 to 1987.
context_section_description: The last year for the original Can-Am championship was 1974. Spiraling costs, a recession in North America following the oil crisis, and dwindling support and interest led to the series being canceled and the last scheduled race of the 1974 season not being run.  The Can-Am name still held enough drawing power to lead SCCA to introduce a revised Can-Am series in 1977 based on a closed-wheel version of the rules of the recently canceled Formula A/5000 series. This grew steadily in status, particularly during the USAC/CART wars of the late 70s and early 80s, and attracted some top road-racing teams and drivers and a range of vehicles including specials based on rebodied single seaters (particularly Lola F5000s) and also bespoke cars from constructors like March as well as smaller manufacturers. To broaden the appeal of the series a 2L class was introduced for the last several years—cars often being derived from F2/Formula Atlantic. The series peaked in the early 80s but as the CART Indycar series and IMSA's GTP championship grew in stature it faded. In 1987 the series changed as Indycars started to become a source of cars. The SCCA took away the Can-Am name but the series continued as the Can-Am Teams Thunder Cars Championship. After a single year the teams took the sports bodies off and evolved into American Indycar Series.
  In 1991, after 18 months of development, a Shelby Can-Am series was created using a production line of Sports bodied cars designed by Carrol Shelby powered by a 3.3 litre Dodge V6. The series ran for five years before it was dropped by the SCCA. A large number of cars were relocated to South Africa and ran from 2000 onwards.
  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.
caption: Al Holbert driving a VDS-001 in the revived Can-Am in 1982.
exif: {}