1978 Manta Mirage McLaren M8 Can-Am – Auction Car of the Week

Hand a six-year-old a piece of paper and a crayon and ask them to draw you a car and chances are you’ll receive something approximating this 1978 McLaren M8 replica, a car that looks like it’s breaking laws even when it’s standing still. With its classic wedge shape it’s peak ’70s race car, and race car it certainly is because even though this is essentially a Manta Mirage it has been faithfully re-imagined as a road-going version of the incredible McLaren M8 Can-Am competition car.

The Can-Am, or Canadian-American Challenge Cup to give it its full name, was a famously no holds barred, anything goes kind of race series that operated between 1966 and 1987 where engine capacity was unrestricted and there were few other constraints to speak of. What this meant for late, great Kiwi racing car designer, driver, engineer and self-confessed speed freak Bruce McLaren, founder of the McLaren race team (yes, that McLaren), was an opportunity to develop and run his own sports cars without any pesky technical restrictions getting in the way. We salute you sir.

McLaren as a team would go on to dominate the competition from 1968 to 1971, very much proving Bruce’s skills when it came to building successful racing cars and subsequently inspiring two lads from California to create the Manta Mirage, the road-legal racing car upon which this M8 Can-Am car is based. Brad and Tim LoVette designed and built the Mirage as a mid-engined, steel space frame chassis racer for the road fitted with a whopping great V8. With an all fibreglass body, gullwing doors and a Targa roof it weighed about as much as a packet of Nik Naks and as such the car’s power to weight ratio verged on the ridiculous, making it an incredibly rapid bit of kit.

So with our rather succinct history lesson out of the way, what of the car in question? Having been recently and comprehensively restored after around 600 man hours of work, this 1978 Manta Mirage McLaren M8 replica (one of the stolen cars in the original Gone in 60 Seconds, don’t you know) is a sight to behold. Resplendent in fresh Papaye Orange McLaren paintwork and featuring period correct racing decals and logos it’s an arresting image. Coupled with its Compomotive split-rim lattice style alloy wheels, race harnesses and removable steering wheel its ready to compete. The simple, no-nonsense interior is pure race car, too but more modern aluminium silver on white dials have been added as part of the recent restoration process.

We’ve seen it in the flesh and it does not disappoint. It certainly looks the part but underneath that hand-laid, sculpted fibreglass body is where things get really interesting, with everything turned up to 11, as it should be for a car that is representing one of the most successful Can-Am models to ever clip an apex. Featuring the correct Chevrolet V8, albeit in 350ci small-block form as oppose to the 430 big block fitted to the actual M8 cars, it still produces around 440bhp and we kindly refer you back to our earlier comments about power-to-weight ratios with this car well and truly falling into the ‘outrageous’ category.

Fully rebuilt and equipped with an astonishing list of performance modifications it’s quite the engine and with a whole host of modern upgrades it brings the car kicking and (quite literally) screaming into the 21st century, and it’s a welcome revamp of the mechanicals. The car could have been left period with regards to the oily bits but the addition of things like a six-speed Porsche Boxster (G86-20) transaxle with limited-slip differential and aluminium radiator with a new electric fan are a nice touch, making this Manta Mirage a much more usable proposition. And you’re going to want to use it. In anger. At every opportunity. What a thing.