Lot 518: 1968-69 AVS Shadow-Chevrolet ‘Lowline’ CanAm Racing Sports Initial Prototype

The opportunity to acquire an example of any famous and charismatic racing marque’s initial development prototypes arises very seldom. Here we at Bonhams & Butterfields are delighted to be able to present for sale by auction one of the most startling designs ever to achieve tangible – and no less startling! – material form.

It was in 1968 that would-be American racing constructor and entrepreneur Don Nichols took serious interest in backing and producing this quite extraordinary sports-prototype Group 7 competition car to attack the fast-developing Canadian-American Challenge series…best remembered today as the legendary ‘CanAm Championship’.

Some of the more earnest and serious-minded of contemporary racing pundits described the car which Don Nichols backed as being ‘certainly unconventional’. Rather more described it as being ‘outlandish’, or ‘truly wild and wacky’. When the first race model actually took the track and ran hard – in the opening round of the 1970 CanAm series at Mosport Park in Canada, one hardened veteran recalls how: “I knew George Follmer was on his way in that amazing little AVS Shadow. I heard it approaching and refocused my camera on the straightaway brow to catch him as he’d come into sight. Then there he was – and it was an amazing sight. It looked kinda like a man just seated on a skateboard, with a Chevvy V8 strapped to his back – the image looked so amazing I forgot to press the shutter and missed the shot! Made sure I got it later though…That car was such an amazing stroke it was too good to miss.”

In fact Don Nichols had first taken interest in producing a CanAm sports car of exceptionally low frontal area – to maximize its straightline speed in contrast to similarly Chevrolet-engined rivals – in 1968. The first prototype car was completed in 1969, and Don Nichols’s Advanced Vehicle Systems Incorporated (AVS) team finally took what we believe was a sister car onto the race tracks for the 1970 Championship season, with the fearless former Porsche SCCA star George Follmer strapped into the tiny device as its driver.

Pete Lyons reported on the debut of the new car and team at Mosport in 1970, like this: “Honours for The Most Astonishing Design went to the AVS Shadow. The car actually existed midway through last season, but was never deemed ready for competition. Fulltime work by the team has proven them entirely serious and now, as financier Don Nichols says, they are ready to go before the world: ‘We’re playing it strong. We’ll either win big, or lose big’.”

Pete Lyons – the absolute dean of CanAm covering race reporters – continued: “The car is hard to believe even when seen, so tiny is it – literally knee-high. It all depends on the minute Firestone tires, which have 11ins and 16ins footprints but are mounted on wheels 10ins and 12ins in diameter. It is said the carcase construction is more flexible than a normal tire to give a longer footprint, and naturally the rubber compound is harder; pressures in the region of 37psi are used. Temperatures appear to be normal.

“The suspension is designed to give as nearly a perfect parallelogram action as possible, spoilt a trifle in the back due to space problems over a total travel range of four inches. Springs are multiple at each wheel; they’re coils about the size you’d expect around the valves of a large diesel motor, worked by rocking levers. Damping is by multi-plate friction discs just like 40 years ago, but designer Trevor Harris breaks out into his infectious grin and says friction material technology has come a long a bit in 40 years!...

“…At the nose of the car the overall height is determined by the driver’s feet. Harris has beat poor George Follmer, who drives it, completely splay-footed; the pedals work on nearly vertical axes, and there is room for only two of them. The clutch is operated by a cockpit level at the driver’s left-hand, and is actually only used to draw off from rest. Gearchanges on the circuit are clutchless. At this point discussion with the team becomes coy, implying they have done something remarkable to the inside of the Hewland LG600” (gearbox) “so that it will withstand the treatment…there is a quite elaborate transmission lubrication system which receives constant attention…

“Naturally the small wheels have required the cutting of special gears, and the gearbox has a bulge welded into itself to fit them…

“When this little ‘go-kart’ explodes into 7-liter life on the circuit, the effect is attention grabbing to say the least. Follmer…admits the term ‘go-kart’ is not wildly inappropriate…Nichols and Firestone have spent a lot of money and determination so far, but they seem to have plenty left!”.

As did George Follmer himself, for he actually qualified the little ‘roller-skate’ sixth fastest overall for this debut race at Mosport – headed only by the Gulf-McLaren M8Ds of Dan Gurney and Denny Hulme, future Shadow CanAm Champion Jackie Oliver (then driving the Autocoast Ti22), Peter Revson’s Lola T220 and Lothar Motschenbacher’s McLaren M6B. In the race itself George Follmer received bad news from the Shadow’s instruments and switched-off to avoid a costly engine failure.

At Ste Jovite the AVS Shadow race car reappeared with lowered water radiators in the rear wing assembly, but retired with overheating.

The team’s original race car was then damaged in a transporter accident, and a second race car replaced it in time for the Mid-Ohio CanAm Championship round. This one had been built originally to accept a turbocharged Toyota engine in preparation for potential Group 5 Toyota-Shadow racing in the 1971 World Championship. Now the Toyota notion had been discarded in favor of a Chevrolet V8 for immediate CanAm use. Tail radiators in the wing structure demolished much of the early low frontal area theory, hydraulic rear suspension dampers replacing the friction discs, and Porsche 917 star driver Vic Elford replaced George Follmer in the hot seat…

The Englishman qualified seventh fastest for the Mid-Ohio race but in the race one front wheel lost its balance weight, the steering wheel became a blur with vibration and since wheel changing involved detail bodywork and brake cooling fan removal Quick Vic’s race was over – as was the first Championship involvement of the AVS Shadow.

For many enthusiasts and race car collectors, however, there is always a special cachet attaching to the innovative, lateral-thinking underdog design – and this the maverick AVS Shadow certainly proved to be in its initial as-raced form.

However, Don Nichols would find a more practical – and infinitely more successful future with his AVS Shadow CanAm and Formula 1 car programmes. He had always had a keen eye upon promotion and publicity in finding methods to fund his motor racing ambitions. While the Trevor Harris-designed CanAm ‘go-kart’ or ‘roller-skate’ of 1970 was remarkable for its daring ingenuity as an alternative approach to unlimited engine-capacity sports car racing – the AVS venture’s original sponsorship-finding prototype build for that car had been far more sleek – perhaps less practical – but absolutely infinitely more elegant.

In the mid-1980s Don Nichols was approached on behalf of the great German competition car enthusiast and collector Peter Kaus – creator of the Rosso Bianco Collection – who was interested in acquiring a number of his important CanAm cars. He was particularly interested in the 1969-announced small-wheeled prototype in its original launch form – as publicized at the time in connection with its being driven by past Indianapolis star Rufus ‘Parnelli’ Jones. We understand that Mr. Nichols had the car restored in that form and amongst the documentation file accompanying all these cars at Quail Lodge there is a copy of a ‘Bill of Sale’ between Don G. Nichols of Carmel, California, and Mr. Peter Kaus of Aschaffenburg, Germany, dated May 16, 1990 in which the vendor transferred “…all my rights and title of my personal owend (sic) racecar CAN-AM SHADOW of the year 1968 over to…” the German buyer.

Here we are delighted to be able to offer this remarkable low-line, horizontal steering-wheeled black Shadow maverick in all its sleek, ultra low-line, original-intention glory – only one previous private owner, ex-works; the taproot of the AVS Shadow line.