Badass VW

How could you forget the Black Magic, a Turbonique Axled Bug
But when it came to showmanship, I'm not sure even the talented Tim Woods could hold a candle to Kansas City's Roy "Mr. Pitiful" Drew. Foresaking the more traditional drag classes, Drew delighted thousands in the Sixties with his exhibition rocket powered (!) VW Beetle. Using a thermolene-fueled Turbonique thrust turbine rocket engine (I'll have much much more about Turbonique in a later post), Drew's Black Magic Bug was a major spectator draw, and consistently stomped some of the top fuel dragsters of the day. In one memorable match race he shut down Tommy Ivo's 4-engine Showboat, turning a mind-boggling 9.36 ET at 168 MPH.

 

That's awesome!

 

hey, don't worry about Chopped50Ford... if he gets too out of line, just ask him if he has ever worked for a guy named Ryan Lee Price, and what he did for them, and what magazine it appeared in..
Thanks again for the Tru-Spokes, Norm... 8=)

 

and ryan even approved of this post if you read it far enough back

 

VW is the only foreign car I would own. I'd still put a Eldorado or Tornado engine/trans in the back...

I had a couple as a kid, too. VW threads usually seem to go many pages, with few negative comments.

 

One for the resident all caps rock star...

 

Wasn't that called the Black Widow?

 

I posted most of these before, but here are some Trad VW Drag cars.

 

Wheelstanders..

 

A little more "hamb-correct"...

 

Drag Bikes...

 

Von Dutch put a VW motor in at least one of his BMWs.

 

I've seen this car in person at Manasas Bugout years ago and the work that went into this car is awsome. It blows my mind that the doors are functional and open on this car.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself. That car is wild!

 

oh man, there was a turbonique powered bug. that's a seriously frightening thought. i'm gonna be sporting a tent for the next three hours now.

 

that almar9 website, with the Shorrock-blown VW, and the Turbonique Bug, belongs to Alejandro Martinez, of Belguim. If any of you ever want to use a Judson Supercharger on something, he's the "go-to" guy. Judson made them not only for VWs, but many many other makes of cars, including (IIRC) Corvair. he can set you up with the vanes, bearings, everything needed to return a beat-up Judson blower into serviceable shape. They're great for smaller-displacement engines, which may be against the HAMB credo, but they are low boost, and would probably work extremely well on an (otherwise stock) flathead.
As long as Ryan doesn't get annoyed with the content, hell, it's HIS site, and HIS bandwidth...

 

...

 

Here's a pic of my dad's 1942 H-D with a 45 cu in OPPOSED engine (1972) ..... There WAS a VW engine in it at one time.....check out the VW with the '40 Ford kit on it....hahaha....that was my dad's too....



And a couple of the Inch Pincher..

 

Here are some more...

In these pics Dan Gurney is racing it at the Nassau Raceweek,
The driver in the other bug is AJ Foyt.

This was before the Inch Pincher became a drag car...

 

If anyone cares, Metalshapes has the full story on the pre-Inch Pincher VW, driven at the Nassau Gran Prix...
Thanks again, I have all of that saved on a CD now. 8=)
When I met Joe Vittone a few years back, it was amazing what that guy remembered from the early days.
I'm still running the original, riveted together, EMPI Rader wheels on my '57..

 

Say 26T...do you know how many different "versions" of the Inch Pincher were there??? The first was an oval....then the chopped one was a 60-something??? Seem to be a few variations....

 

Dang! Look at the meats on the truck, or are those huge mudflaps?

 

Hahaha...1972, rural Oregon....mudflaps....

 

I guess this purple one is the one that ran in sweden in the 70's. My father knew of the guy who had it. He tried to sell it to some restorers as it was so rare, but noone wanted it so he cut it up like that and dragraced it… Thats the story I heared. Anyone knew more?

 

Here is Bugzilla that lives at the SPEEDWAGEN Shop

 

The first one, was an Oval hardtop, then, after campaigning it for a year or so, it got a facelift with a bigger back window ('58-'64 style), flowered graphic top, fiberglass fenders and doors, etc. The same chassis and engine/trans combo was then used on the chopped-top "Inch Pincher Too" racecar. It is one of the VW worlds great mysteries, where the original, Inch Picher body is now, although I just heard that one of the original doors, or maybe both of them, have re-surfaced. To a VW guy, that's like finding the "Orbitron"....
There was also an "Inch Pincher 3" car, that was raced up and down the East Coast, by Richard Guarino, who owned Competiton Car Parts, on Boston Post Road, in the Bronx, New York who was, among other things, the East Coast EMPI Distributor. (I know Richard quite well, still talk with him at least once a week via telephone, and he has given me many incredible stories, like how he bought the base car, a 1953 Split Window, for fifty bucks, had the guy drive it over to him, and he promptly sold the engine, trans, and wheels for 50 bucks, thereby getting a free race car body)
My favorite Inch Pincher story is when I thought the sun rose and set in a Hemi's exhaust, and a friend of mine's Hemi-Cuda got spanked one night at OCIR by the Inch Pincher...That's when I realized that these little Kraut cans could be made into something...
The Inch Pincher 3 now resides in a private Museum in Japan.
There was also the EMPI Dragster (now restored) and the "Jouster" (a short-lived, crashed soon after it was built, early version of what could be called a VW Funny car...)
So the Dan Gurney Nassau car became the original Inch Pincher, and the chassis became the foundation for the second, "Inch Pincher Too" car.
Any of you HAMB-er's that have any old, original, Blue and Orange boxes, EMPI stuff, from 520 Roberta Street in Riverside, you're looking at some pretty good money from a collector... that goes for the old Speedwell and DDS (Deano Dyno-Soars) stuff, as well.