1969 McLaren Other for sale

Several M12s were later modified by customers in order to cope with necessary demands. Many Can-Am M12 customers added larger rear wings for better downforce, in an attempt to keep up with competitors which had already done the same. Two M12s were imported to Japan by Toyota and received revised bodywork to allow better results at Japanese circuits as well as to fit companys own V8 engine. M12 owner Phil Scragg modified his car with smaller M6 bodywork for use in hillclimb events. One final M12 was used by Trojan to develop a street legal coupandeacute; for Canadian Andrandeacute; Fournier.

Specific history of this car:

The M6 / M12 GT Coupe was a road going development of the McLaren M6 / M12 Can-Am car. In total, only 8 M6/M12 GTs coupes were built.

McLaren Can Am Customer car number M12 #60-14 was built by the Lambretta-Trojan factory of Peter Agg, as were all customer McLarens, only the prototypes being built by the then very small McLaren factory in Colnbrook. The M12 was the 1969 customer version of the previous years M6B, using the same chassis but with M8A type bodywork being fitted, which gave greater downforce than that in the M6B.

Fourteen M12 spyders were built, and since chassis number 13 was not built, M12 60-14 was the last car produced. Numbers #10, #14 and #12 stayed at Shelbys shop for about a year before going to Holman and Moodys, where Vic Franzese bought #12 and #14 as rolling chassis (sold to Carrol Shelby in America 1969, without engine or gearbox). M12 #60-14 was sold on after a year, to Holman and Moody, the race preparation company, who in turn sold both M12 #60-12 and M12 #60-14 to Vic Franzese of Montour Falls, N.Y.

Franzese was running a race team in the Can Am series and had previously fielded a McLaren M6B for Ron Goldleaf to drive.

The last two M12s that Vic Franzese bought were numbers #12 and #14, not #11 and #12 as he thinks; He did not pay much attention to chassis numbers at the time, and only knows the number of the McLaren M12 that he bought, (#60-12), because he still has it (2012)!

Vic Franzese assembled both cars in his workshop and entered them for rounds of the 1971 Can Am season, using aluminum big Block Chevrolet engines and having sponsorship from the Great Western Champagne Company. During the build up, Vic Franzese removed the chassis plates from both cars and placed them in a cigar box on his office desk.

First time out for the new M12s was at the Circuit of St Jovite in Canada on June 27th, 1971 and Ron Goldleaf drove chassis M12 #60-12 but overheating forced him out after just twenty laps. The spare chassis, M12 #60-14, did not run.

This set the picture for the season; Both Gary Wilson and Bob Nagel then drove M12 #60-12 in four other Can Am races but #60-14 was the spare car and did not run. At the end of the season Vic Franzese sold #60-14 to whom, he cannot now remember, but says (2011) that it might have been Pete Sherman, I cant remember.

In 1972, Pete Sherman raced M12 #60-14 (72CA31), with race number 51 at Road America on the 27th August, qualifying his new car twenty second out of thirty four cars entered and finished in an encouraging seventeenth position.

Three weeks later, Pete Sherman drove M12 60-14 again at Donnybrooke and this time finished ninth overall, a