Lohnes is freaking out over the Can-Am series and for the most part, I’m on board with it as well. What’s not to love about a big-block Chevy-powered car taking to road courses like it’s a slot car? I even like the idea of the old-school brakes, which will be the deciding factor between talent and stupidity. All of this is well and good, but there’s one thing that really puts me off on cars like Can-Ams, F1, LMPs and the like: It’s not a freaking car so much as it is a toy or an exercise in engineering. Yeah, it hauls ass and it makes the right noises, but I don’t feel a connection to the car at all. It’s not like I can go buy a Lola-Ford or a Chaparral and go bombing down the highway in one, not even a watered-down “safe for the street” version. With that missing, it’s just a driver and a wedge with wheels.

If you really want to grab my attention, however, show me what the car that could be bought can do. Kick the engine in the ass, beef up the suspension, and find a guy who makes this weird titanium-like clanking noise when he walks to drive it. Nowadays, not many race cars have much, if anything, in common with the cars in the showrooms, but if there was one series that inspired a driver to do something besides a straight-line shot it was Trans Am. Javelins, Mustangs, Camaros, Mopar E-bodies and every once in a while a random oddball like a Mercury Cougar would battle it out on road courses across the country in production cars that had been stripped and prepped. The hills would come alive with the sound of pissed-off high-revving small blocks and the crowds flocked.

This footage was taken from the SVRA Historic Trans-Am race at Watkins Glen in 2013. You get in-car, roof and track footage of these cars being used in anger as they were meant to be. The noise is heavenly and the view is spectacular.