Instead of hijacking Hurst's thread, I decided to delete and post the information on a new thread:

There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to the Mclaren name in the US. I had to satisfy my own curiosity and did some research.

The McLaren connection is there.. not like we are accustomed to, but Bruce McLaren did establish the McLaren name in North American. This will spark some memories for the Can Am fans.

McLaren Performance Technologies/McLaren Engines/McLaren North America:

In 1969, New Zealand born Bruce McLaren, engineer turned racer, established a company in North America to support his Can-Am interests. In addition to the engineering base that the U.S. company provided, McLaren Engines (as the group was then called) proved to be a significant North American logistics advantage, being centrally located in Livonia, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit). It was also no coincidence that the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway was only a few hours away.

The Team McLaren success in the Can-Am racing series was monumental. The big orange race cars and team won five championships in the nine years that the series was run.

Shortly after, with the Livonia base already paying huge dividends, it was on to Indianapolis for the 500. In 1974, Team McLaren conquered the Brickyard with Johnny Rutherford winning the Indy 500. Rutherford repeated in 1976 with another Team McLaren victory at Indy. McLaren Engines, also developed the M12 4 cylinder BMW engine into its 1st turbocharged configuration, and raced a BMW 320i Sedan in the IMSA series, with great success. Subsequent versions of this engine project eventually won the 1st FI World Championship for a turbo engine in 1983 with Nelson Piquet and Brabham.

By the end of the decade; Team McLaren's own racing interests were re-concentrated in Europe with a focus on Formula 1. McLaren Engines however, began to reinvent itself and leveraged its expertise in advanced powertrain development toward providing engineering services and solutions for the automotive industry.

With its General Motors experience from the Can-Am days, McLaren Engines very quickly found itself involved with numerous GM projects--particularly in both the Chevrolet and Buick domain. In addition, the participation with GM took McLaren Engines into marine applications as well.

After building one-off prototypes, McLaren Engines soon accelerated into the exotic domain of niche and specialty vehicles. An instant legend was created when McLaren Engines designed and developed the awe-inspiring Buick GNX as the powertrain partner to ASC Inc., along with the McLaren Mustang and the Pontiac GTP Turbo. The concept GMC Cyclone and Typhoon trucks were also engineered in Livonia.

McLaren Engines wouldn't stay away from motorsports for long. While developing many examples of its niche vehicle activity, the Livonia, Michigan headquarters became a center for the turbocharged Buick V6 Indy car and IMSA efforts. In addition, McLaren Engines reunited with BMW and produced a winning combination for BMW of North America's GTP sports racer challenge.

During this time, the respected core business of engineering services continued in the fast lane and made Livonia the place for single-source engineering solutions. McLaren Engines has become recognized as the premium partner of choice for everything from automotive testing to full-service design, development, and prototype fabrication.

The tradition of competitive spirit, agility, integrity and innovation is alive and well. From developing the Northstar powertrain for Cadillac's 24-Hour LeMans racer to reaching out into such new powertrain demonstration projects like the Ford FR 500/200/100 concept vehicles, McLaren Performance Technologies is continuing to accelerate ahead of the competition.


McLaren Performance Technologies has the capability of designing, fabricating, assembling, painting and testing concept, prototype and performance vehicles. We have the ability to design and develop everything from one-off engineering prototypes to low-volume or specialty vehicle builds.

Our prototyping and fabrication facilities are supported with 14 bays with hoists, an automotive-grade paint booth, and a highly skilled fabrication & assembly work force with many years of experience building specialized concept, performance, and test vehicles.

We also offer exclusive custom service and can bring our Design, Fabrication, Installation, Restoration, Customization, Body Work, Painting, and Assembly capabilities to individual client's projects.

Together with our component manufacturing and system design & development capabilities, McLaren Performance Technologies offers an integrated system of specialized vehicle fabrication capabilities that is second to none.

- Courtesy of mclarenperformance.com

ASC (American Sunroof Company) is now known as American Specialty Company. The company was founded by Heinz Prechter in Los Angeles, California as the American Sunroof Company in 1965. The company soon expanded its operations into Detroit by 1967. The company first supplied OEM services to the Ford 1968 Cougar XR-7.

ASC invented the glass-panel "moonroof", both the inward- and outward-folding soft convertible tops, and modern retractable hardtops. In the industry, ASC became well known for converting standard coupe automobiles into convertibles on an OEM basis. The company also engineers convertible tops for automakers to build themselves. Other original-equipment firsts for ASC include the mobile video system (on the Chevrolet Venture) and the powered sunroof.

ASC is where a lot of manufacturers send their cars to get "factory" sunroofs or convertibles installed. They've also performed a lot of other modifications in the past but have concentrated mostly on body modifications.

Recent ASC concepts:

ASC Cosmos – The Cosmos features an InfiniVu™ Fabric roof system, which transforms a Hummer H3 into an SUV ready to take on the heavens as well as Earth. Bi-directional, the between-the-roof-rails top slides either rearward toward the D-pillar or forward toward the A-pillar, or to any point in between, offering an infinite number of open-air iterations—for those in the rear of the vehicle as well as the front. And, at the D-pillar the system features a moving horizontal header, which moves out of the way as the roof slides forward, providing the added benefit of pickup-truck-like utility.
ASC TriLite – A skylight on wheels, the TriLite enhances a Toyota Sienna minivan, with a unique moving-panel roof system. Its InfiniVu™ system features not one, not two, but three moving panels. And, in an industry first, all are made of Lexan® GLX resin with Exatec®, a polycarbonate window-glazing solution that can potentially be up to half the weight of glass—an important benefit in roof-mounted systems. In addition, glazing applications made with GE’s Lexan® GLX resin offers shatter-resistance, and presents automotive designers with more styling freedom compared with glass.
ASC Diamondback Viper, Powered by McLaren – A “snake” with an all-new skin—and ultimate display of the production merits of ASC’s patent-pending OmniCarbon™ process--the Diamondback Viper is super-light and super-fast. It’s fitting that ASC, which helped the Chrysler Group bring the new Dodge Viper SRT10 coupe to life, would, with the aid of McLaren Performance Technologies, show how the Viper coupe might be taken to an all-new level of “extreme.” The 615 hp Diamondback Viper features a carbon fiber roof, deck lid, rockers, fascia inserts, body trim and a massive OmniCarbon™ hood that shows off ten unique trumpeted air intakes, with individual port throttles, peeking through—a McLaren Performance Technologies feature reminiscent of McLaren Can-Am engines of the past. The hood also shows off ASC’s expertise in compression-molded carbon fiber, both painted and woven. It’s displayed beautifully, with a broad, clear-coated racing stripe down the Arctic White-painted expanse, subtly outlined by “Viper Blue” and “McLaren Orange” pinstripes. In all, ASC removed about 85 lb. of weight from the vehicle—including cutting the weight of the hood by nearly half versus the production model. Taken together with the powertrain modifications by McLaren Performance Technologies, the power-to-weight ratio was increased, resulting in an estimated increase in 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds. And, importantly, ASC’s OmniCarbon™ isn’t just light and nice to look at: ASC has reduced cycle times in the process by 80% versus conventional molding methods, and is confident its process meets OEM production specifications.
ASC-Suzuki Wave – Inventing an all-new segment, the UTV ("ultimate tailgate vehicle") the Wave concept property was completely designed, developed and fabricated in ASC’s California studio for American Suzuki Motor Corp. LIFE VEHICLE Concept Series (LIVE) is one of two such vehicles designed by ASC (the other, the Dune, also being displayed at NAIAS, in Suzuki’s booth). The Wave’s entire rear section behind the second row of seats pulls out to reveal your own barbecue grille and cooler deck. Other unique ASC enhancements to the Grand Vitara-based four-door roadster include new front and rear fascias, modified doors with new top caps integrating a water-sports theme and a custom two-tone paint scheme.

- Chrysler 300C Helios (prototype convertible conversion)
- Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder (convertible conversion)
- Toyota Camry Solara Convertible (convertible conversion)
- Buick GNX (high-performance turbocharger)
- Chevrolet Camaro (convertible conversion)
- Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder (convertible conversion)
- Nissan 240SX (convertible conversion)
- Pontiac Firebird (convertible conversion)
- Pontiac Grand Prix Turbo Grand Prix (high-performance turbocharger, body kit)
- Porsche 968 Convertible (convertible conversion)
- Saab 900 convertible prototype
- BMW Z4 (OEM convertible hardware with Edscha Cabrio-Verdecksysteme)
- Chevrolet SSR (convertible hardtop engineering
- Dodge SRT-4 (external modifications)
- Pontiac Grand Am SC/T (external modifications)
- Dodge Shadow Convertible
- GMC Syclone/Typhoon (high-performance turbocharger, body kit, AWD)
- courtesy of Wikipedia

Some stuff I didnt know on there :cheers: and those Can Am days - WOW!!! Serious Horsepower and Serious noise!!!