Solved NIC#419 - 1970 Mac's-It Special

[nicanary]

What is this car, and why is it so unusual?

[nicanary]

Experts?

[pftnbr]

1970 Mac's It Special Can Am car, unusual because of its quad Rotax motorcycle engines, one for each wheel. Legend has it that it was impressively slow!

[nicanary]

1970 Mac's It Special Can Am car, unusual because of its quad Rotax motorcycle engines, one for each wheel. Legend has it that it was impressively slow!

That's it! A quite extraordinary car, and I'm mystified as to why they thought it would work - it is rumoured that the car could barely make it from the paddock to the track. Here's a photo showing the location of the front engines.

[sixtee5cuda]

The son of a member of the Enovation Racing team indicated:

"All the motors were connected to each other by drive shafts, with the main shaft going along side the driver. The most difficult part of this project was in trying to "sync" eight separate carburetors on four separate motors. This variation of output from four motors was the real downfall of the car as it would twist the drive shaft into spaghetti each time Hiroshi tried to get on the power."

8 cylinders and 440 HP.  Interesting idea.  Instead of using driveshafts, maybe the track surface could have worked better to keep the engines in sync?  I suspect differing wheel speed while cornering, would also put a lot of stress on the drive shafts.