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The McLaren M20 was a sports prototype developed by McLaren for the 1972 season of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup. It served as a replacement for the team's M8Fs, but it later became the final Can-Am design created by McLaren before the team left the series after failing to secure the 1972 championship title. M20s continued to be entered by private teams until the Can-Am championship was canceled at the conclusion of the 1974 season. McLaren driver Denny Hulme won two races during the 1972 season while Scooter Patrick won a single event in 1974 with a privately entered M20. ==Development== When McLaren designed their replacement for 1971's M8Fs, one of the team's primary goals was to improve the cooling structure of the cars in order to allow their racing drivers, Denny Hulme and Peter Revson, more comfort during races. The M8F, as with previous McLaren sports cars, featured a large radiator mounted in the nose of the car, through which air was drawn from openings in the nose, and exited upwards over the open cockpit. McLaren designers Gordon Coppuck and Tyler Alexander devised a solution to this heat problem by using two radiators, one each mounted on either side of the cockpit, and drawing air from the side of the bodywork. This meant that hot air exiting the radiator no longer passed over the cockpit, and decreased fatigue on the drivers. With a radiator no longer housed in the nose of the car, McLaren designs were free to redesign the nose for better aerodynamic efficiency. This resulted in the addition of an adjustable airfoil between the front wheel fenders which increased the downforce on the front end of the car, leading to increased grip while cornering. The new radiator design also required a redesign of the fuel tanks within the car. The new tanks for the M20 were compacted around the cockpit and designed to flow from the outward tanks into the central tank so that as fuel was burned off during the race,〔 it would not affect the weight distribution of the car. The engine of the M20 was once again a Chevrolet V8 engine, increased in displacement to and producing approximately 750 horsepower.〔 Attached to the engine was a Hewland Mk II gearbox, mounted behind the engine rather than between the engine and cockpit as competitors Porsche and Alfa Romeo used. The fiberglass bodywork attached to the aluminium chassis was similar to the M8F, maintaining the "Coke bottle" design,〔 but with the addition of ducting on the side to feed the radiators. Brakes were developed in conjunction with Lockheed. Improving on the recently developed cross-drilled brakes from the previous season, grooves were machined into the discs to prevent outgassing.〔 Goodyear remained as the team's official tire supplier. In total, three M20s were built by McLaren in 1972. Unlike previous McLarens, no customer variants were developed for private teams prior to McLaren leaving the Can-Am series, although all three cars were eventually sold to other teams. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「McLaren M20」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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