Founded in 1958 by Eric Broadley, Lola Cars International Ltd. is a now-defunct British race engineering outfit that focused exclusively on the development and production of cutting-edge race cars. And while Lola is best-known for its Formula One (and Formula 3000 and 5000) racers, the brand also churned out vehicles for use in smaller series like the USAC and SCCA. One such model was the T160 — a fiberglass-bodied racer that would win the inaugural Can-Am Championship in 1966.
Sold new in 1968, this Lola example started life as a T160 that was campaigned in SCCA competition. In the early 1980s, Arizona-based race shop Can-Am Constructors would purchase the racer before spending the next two years tearing down the machine and building it back up as a T165-spec custom road-legal racer. Riding on a set of 15” magnesium center-locking wheels, the car is cloaked in a widened fiberglass Lola T70 Mk III gullwing body that’s been finished in a school bus yellow livery with royal blue race stripes. The street-legal racer also sports adjustable four-pot Girling disc brakes and a Lola T222-specification suspension setup with adjustable anti-roll bars, cast-alloy uprights, unequal A-arms, and adjustable Koni coil-overs.
The car is powered by a rear-mounted 7.5L Chevrolet MK IV V8 engine with an Inglese intake, dry-sump lubrication, a Vertex magneto ignition, and an all-synchromesh ZF five-speed manual transaxle. The 460ci big-block engine also now inhales through a velocity-stack-fed, quad dual-throat Weber carb setup and spits spent fumes from a custom four-into-one exhaust culminating in a high-mounted set of dual tailpipes. Cranking out 560hp and 465ft-lbs of torque, the eight-cylinder engine at the heart of the build allows the one-off Lola to reach speeds of almost 185mph.
After its completion, this project was featured on the cover of the April 1984 issue of Road & Track magazine, which boasted an extensive article on the build. Located in Needham, Massachusetts, this custom 1969 Lola T165/70 build by Can-Am Constructors is currently up for offer on Bring a Trailer, where, at the time of writing, bidding has reached $88,888 with 11 days remaining on the sale.
