Product Description

The mighty machines of the Can-Am Championship have to be leading candidates for the title of 'most awesome racing cars ever'. Almost forty years ago they put out close to 1500 horsepower in their most-developed form, and hit speeds of 240mph with aerodynamics that were experimental at best and highly dangerous at worst! They made the Grand Prix F1 cars of the day look tame by comparison. Even today, the 'Can-Am thunder' still rumbles as huge crowds flock to historic race meetings wherever these incredible cars appear. Porsche, McLaren, Lola and Shadow were the Championship-winning cars, with Chaparral, Bryant T22, March and Ferrari as the challengers. We feature all of these as they rumble and roar around tracks like Laguna Seca, with its legendary downhill 'corkscrew' turn, and rocket down the bumpy straight at Sebring at 190mph! We even recall the days of the 'Interserie' - Europe's Can-Am equivalent - by filming at the Nurburgring round of the International Supersports Cup. Can-Am Thunder features a great combination of modern action footage - including on-boards - and superb archive material from the best photographers of the day. The acknowledged 'number one' Can-Am guru - author and photographer, Pete Lyons - recalls the stories that led to his best-selling books on the series and delves into his photo archives to take us back to the Can-Am era. In this he is joined by another award-winning author and photographer focussing on those awesome days, Dave Friedman. There's also contributions from Hurley Haywood, one of the world's best-ever sports car drivers with three wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, five in the Daytona 24 Hours and two in the Sebring 12 Hours to his credit! He tells us what it was like to wrestle with the mighty turbocharged Porsche 917/10 in the heat of Can-Am competition. Plus, Peter Bryant recalls what it was like trying to design a 240mph racing car without the aid of computers or wind tunnels! Until now the definitive documentary on the cars of the Can-Am has never been made. This is it!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53475 in DVD
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Synopsis
The complete story of the legendary Can-Am championship, from its 1970s heyday to the historic festivals still going on today. This release features superb archive material and exciting on-board footage.

Customer Reviews

Poor Value
I generally concur with the previous reviewer's critique, though I'm not sure if I'd describe it as very well made nor reflecting top quality production values. This is quite a good summary of the cars and teams themselves, described eloquently by renowned Can-Am expert Pete Lyons, and interspersed with some nice film of a recent reunion at Laguna Seca. However, it is not without mistakes (the Lola T70 most definitely did not start out as an endurance coupé) and general sloppiness (why show a photograph of a T160 when he is talking about the T70?) that crop up in Duke videos far too often. Also, the modern film of Orwell Supercup rounds is incohesive and superfluous.

More importantly though, there is little period footage in this (as stated in the previous review) and what has been included is of very poor quality. It is of no better standard than that of pirated videotape that has been copied several times over and looks like he kind of amateur efforts that were around in the `80s. Furthermore, it is blighted by another of Duke's unconvincing attempts at overdubbing a race commentary and trying to make it sound contemporary. This is all too common on Duke videos of period racing and to any racegoers intimate with the content and pace of a real commentary, it just sounds silly. It would have been far better to simply narrate the period races with a modern retrospective account that does not pretend to be anything else.

Overall, if you are unfamiliar with the golden age of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (incorrectly referred to here as the Canadian-American Championship) and want a general overview, this isn't a bad place to start. However, I suspect most viewers will already know the facts (and will spot the errors) and are hankering for genuine, quality period film. If that's what you're after, seek out Marilyn Fox-Halder (née Motschenbacher)'s Can-Am - The Speed Odyssey DVD; true fans will recognise from the name that this is someone who knows what they are talking about and they will not be disappointed.

Disappointing
There is precious little authentic CanAm footage around, so I was looking forward to this DVD. It's very well made, very knowledgably presented, and reflects Duke's usual top quality production values. And it tells an interesting story, though not, oddly, chronologically. Instead, it tells the story of each individual manufacturer - and there are many.
The really disappointing aspect, given how this DVD has been promoted, is that there is little more than a few minutes total authentic period action footage.The rest of the "action footage" that the blurb boasts is of these mighty cars, being driven by amateurs, pootling around circuits in modern-day "historic" processions. Given how exciting these cars and their drivers were in their day, this will be a huge disappointment to anyone who buys this DVD.
If you want to hear an interesting story about the history of CanAm, you'll be satisfied (although you'd be better off buying Pete Lyon's book). If you want to see real "CanAm Thunder", as the title claims, then this DVD will only disappoint.