The first official appearance with The Silver Gray Beetle was on the evening of Sunday, May 29th 1977 in Norrtull. It was Stockholm’s northern exit at the time with two gas stations and generous parking facilities. With a large traffic junction and highway just next door, it became the perfect meeting place for street racers. Enthusiasts met in this area during the 70s to talk, refuel, supply and race. This was the place that The Silver Gray Beetle would receive its baptism of fire and, maybe, admitted into Swedish Street Racers Hall of Fame.
Many had heard the rumors and were curious despite attempts to keep down expectations and not talk too much about the car. Almost immediately, after arrival at the meet, I was challenged by Thomas who drove a –67 Firebird. During that spring, he had been one of the more frequent racers.
Was it a nervous moment? To be honest, there was always some excitement before a race. Sometimes even a little case of the chills that reflected externally in photos of the times as tense, almost wild, facial expressions. However, reconciling all the preparations I had made in advance gave me confidence that this first race would go well. While any specific afterthoughts or remarks are long since forgotten, the first win caused an unmistakable reaction on the racing scene. An old Volkswagen, even highly tuned, shouldn’t have any chance against American muscle cars. Thus, the talk started and rumors spread.
While the first race was against a car estimated not to go much better than the mid fifteens, the next run was competing with something much faster. It involved a –71 Camaro with 396: a modest competitor for a supped-up Volkswagen. Even against car number two, the win was convincing, which in-turn set the motivation to raise the bar even higher.
Initially, I used a relatively small SU H6 carburetor, which limited the fuel flow and subsequently kept the engine below 5-5.500 rpm despite a rather radical camshaft with a peak up to 1.000 rpm. With a larger Weber 45 DCOE, the quarter mile time improved almost one second with a top speed of around 95 mph. These improvements created a much faster car that appeared at the next race.
This time I squared-off against a –69 Dodge Charger with 440 and an estimated 14-second capacity on the street. There was, again, a win over an opponent who later returned on several occasions. The next one was a –69 Shelby Mustang with a strong 428 engine that had done an impressive 12.8 with slicks and open headers. On the street, it was of course much slower and The Silver Grey Beetle won again.
The next opponent was a fun guy driving a –74 Camaro Z28 with two carburetors on a high rise intake manifold through the hood that looked impressive, but maybe didn’t work that well. This particular owner couldn’t accept to lose against a Volkswagen and immediately asked for a rerun. But, he in turn duly received the answer, “Another time…“.
It is important to understand the philosophy around this decision. I never thought that my car was the fastest;, a realisation that is not very interesting in this context. The crucial thing in street racing is about who wins a run at a unique moment in time factoring in all the darkness and suspense that can arise on such an occasion. It is not about finding out who owns the fastest car.
On another night, and after a winning race against a –69 Road Runner with 426 Hemi engine that managed a high 13 second with the stopwatch, the same guy (with the carburetors through the hood) got his desired rerun with the same result as first time.
During the upcoming weeks, I had two winning races against slower cars: a –58 Chrysler with 413 engine and a –69 289 Mustang. Maybe they didn’t expect to win, but competed just because it was fun and I could more or less cruise through the race. The reason was, of course, to keep down maintenance and save the car for races against faster opponents. From the point of view of the spectators, every win, fast or slow race, looked the same. Rumors spread that nobody really knew how fast The Silver Gray Beetle could run.
The week later, I won again after being challenged a second time by the –69 Charger 440.
The next race was an eye-opener. I had begun to feel unbeatable when a –71 Camaro powered by a strong LS6 454 engine challenged The Silver Grey Beetle. The race was another victory, but when driving back on the highway with very sparse traffic, the Camaro guy hand signaled that he wanted another try with a running start. We started racing from 20 MPH and the cars shot away side-by-side until no one dared to go any faster. It was obvious that the standing start meant everything in my case.
A new challenger emerged in succession from a well-known Pro Stock racer who also owned a highly tuned –68 El Camino with 427 L88 engine. It turned out to be the first time I saw the tail lights of an opponent disappearing and, obviously, losing the race. The differential in the Beetle blew up and, without transmission, a tow car was the only way to get home for me that night. It took me two weeks to overhaul the transmission and installed a strengthen solution in the form of a new differential with a four spider gear kit.
Upon return to Norrtull, a –68 Camaro powered by Tripower 427 and a –71 Charger with a 440 engine were beaten by The Silver Gray Beetle. A couple of days later, a –65 Fuel Injection Corvette also ended up losing the race. The fourth car that was beaten during the weeks after repairing the transmission was a –70 Camaro Z28 with high rise intake manifold and 4.88 rear end gears.
Many year later, rumors circulated about me doing jump starts. I will explain later on two cases when it actually happened by accident. Incidentally, no one whom I had beaten in the course of my racing career demanded a rerun of a race with reference to cheating.
Here’s another description of how the start could be experienced quoted from a web forum:
“His concept was to have just as much power at the start that he did not lose traction as did all other powerful cars. His starts were completely unbelievable, it was as if the car was stretched with a rubber band that was then released.”
Another point of view that has emerged, and even been expressed, by street racers of the 21st century (hardly eye-witnesses) is that the opponents were selected, implicitly b-puncher. It is to degrade many of those who liked to race in the 70’s. Sure, some enthusiasts would probably just race because it was fun and not because they expected to win. But, there were also many racers with really fast cars that invested hard on being the winner. In reality, what this story shows is that people often asked for a race and, in that first year, no one was denied. During the later years, on some occasions, I was challenged to race (hardly in Norrtull) against trailed cars from the strip and, of course, with slicks. After my experiences at the end of the first season, the answer was a firm no. In my world, the competition should be about racing against cars that were actually being used on the street.
The next appearance became both a showdown and a change of arena. More police surveillance of Norrtull meant that street racing periodically searched for new places. In the south, it was mainly about the Örbyleden: a highway near Högdalen’s industrial area. On a couple of occasions, we also raced at Magelungsleden and Tyresöleden; the later a highway that ended up in the suburb Bollmora. Tyresöleden had a good straight with the advantage, back then, of having almost no traffic at night. It was here that I was honored to meet “Lill-Benke” Söderberg: a profile that came to stay in the forefront of street racing for much of the 80s. Amongst others in the circle of friends was Mats Appelgren who has become one of our country’s most famous engine builders. One of the characteristics of this gang was that they liked to be out of favor.
In this race, he drove a –66 Chevelle with “tired 327th” (sometimes it was even a tired 283rd) that was actually a strong 400th smallblock. Many had been fooled and beaten earlier in the season and my thought before the race was to not give anything away. It was a win, but hardly against a car that disappeared in the rear-view mirror.
Some weeks later, something unusual and funny happened. The meeting point before racing on Tyresöleden was a lot near a closed gas station. Just behind the gas station, a high-rise apartment block stood and noise from the cars would echo loudly against the building when racing. It is easy to understand that people who had gone to bed were hardly happy about the noise. The police used to come and chase us away, but this time they did something special. A big force of officers with aggressive-looking dogs came sneaking out of the bushes and maneuvered silently into position around the gas station where the meet was being held. Suddenly, like a shock assault or riot control, they came charging out of their concealed positions against a group that had gathered quietly on a small hill next close by the station. Someone in the offending party played on a guitar and, despite the police squad’s best efforts, no one could be definitely associated to the cars at that time. It appeared somewhat petty to give everyone a ticket for disturbing the peace or citing vehicles with too wide tires, etcetera. To this end, air went out of the thrust very quickly and called to question the worth of the planned raid in the first place. Everyone soon left the meeting point relatively unscathed and we could only marvel at the extent of the crack-down effort by law enforcement.
The next opponent was Affe who has been the most successful street racer in the previous year. He drove a black Camaro Z28 where the LT1 engine was equipped with Crane heads: a rather ambitious thing on the street in 1976. Afterwards, Affe admitted he had missed shifting and, thus, another win was chalked up on the board.
After that, a –70 Chevelle with 402nd was out-driven without giving any special memory. The race took place in Norrtull and, probably, it is the car depicted on the front page of this story.
My friend Lasse with the -69 Hemi Road Runner then wanted a rerun, which was a quick story that ended exactly the same as the first.
After that, there was another challenge that this time came to be run on the Magelungsleden. From Södertälje came PO Helldin: a guy who later became one of our many emigrants to California. He had built up a pretty wild-64 Corvette with tuned 350. The car had a lot of weight removed, rolled on Cragar Super Trick racing wheels (maybe first on the street), manual transmission and 4.11 gears. It became one of the faster races with another win for the Silver Gray Beetle.
Worth mentioning is that by this time, around mid-summer, a turbo failure required an overhaul of the engine. More power had been uncovered, among other things, with the help of a larger compressor impeller and now the stopwatch showed mid twelve seconds.
A few years later, PO’s Corvette had also been further developed. During a private meet in Södertälje, rumors said he had beaten Björn Carapi: one of the faster street racers of the 80s.
During 1977, I challenged several cars without getting any runs. Göran Malmberg, a famous guitar builder and clever guy in handling cars bought a De Tomaso Pantera. Before that, he had competed in a Modified Stock with a Z28. Like everything he did, the class was high and the car seemed very potent (later developed with bigger engines, chassis tuning, etcetera). During a visit to his workshop, the question was raised whether we could have a race. He probably wasn’t tempted because the answer I got was that we should race to Uppsala (80 kilometer highway and winding roads). Under those conditions, all hopes of beating a Pantera were disrupted.
Another attempt that didn’t lead to anything was against a Ford -32 roadster with tuned Cheva small block rumored to be really fast. The owner was Richard Berlin (19_0003) who ran a record store and didn’t hang out with street racers. At one point, maybe when the rod was in a car show, I asked him about a race. “Yea, yea boy, if you want it, let’s compete for real money, thousand bucks!” That was far above my level, so it was a sad case of having to reluctantly back out. However, it became a continuation when the racers in Norrtull heard the story. A couple of guys got together with a fast car, showed the money to Mr Berlin and wondered where they could race. Unsurprisingly, it was his turn to back out.
The next race in Norrtull was against Benke Mellis who had been around for a while and was a fan of his first generation Chevy Nova. Later, he would build several award-winning cars. After previously crashing with a Nova, this time he had a -64 built in the spirit of time with tuned 331, manually shifted and 4.88. Although fast, it was not fast enough in the meeting with The Silver Gray Beetle.
Another race in the same place was against a –70 Nova with 454 LS7 engine, automatic and 4.11 gearing that again ended with a success.
After that, came a new experience. In Åkersberga, a suburb northeast of the city, someone had discovered the potential of a newly-constructed straight road that ended in a major turnaround. Rumors spread and, one sunny weekend, a group of street racers got together to compete. I went there with a secret wish in mind.
It was a loud meeting as almost everyone was running with open headers. The first opponent I raced was a –71 Satellite with 440, which lost. The next turn was towards a –69 Shelby Mustang, which I had raced before and again defeated.
Also, the –69 440 Chargern challenged me again. This time the car had slicks, open headers and no hood but, it still did not reach The Silver Gray.
What I had in mind when driving to Åkersberga was to meet the legendary Ecko and his newly built –75 Chevrolet Monza. Ecko, who could call himself Stockholm’s first really famous street racer, had owed a number of fast cars. Before the Monza, he had a Hemi-`Cuda and a LS6 Corvette.
In a way, his Monza represented new times with, among other things, a professionally built 350 engine. But, Ecko was satisfied with outrunning a friend and another slow car. Like the Disney’s Ferdinand the Bull and the Matador begging Ferdinand for a fight, I pleaded with Ecko for a race. “Only a short race, try to beat me, and so on” but Ecko was steadfast. I was almost down on my knees, but it didn’t help much: he definitely didn’t want to risk being humiliated by losing.
Probably one of the fastest races was the last one in the fall of 1977. One Sunday evening, when we were habitually relating myths and half-truths in Norrtull, a car transport showed up with a green -66 Chevelle on the bed. The temporary license plates, LS6, slicks and open exhaust system spoke a clear language: now The Silver Gray would finally be wiped out and loose a race. The driver, Lasse Rodeblad, did not want to race in Norrtull. The Police would often show up and someone would probably phone them as soon as his engine was started. A more discreet place was the Magelungleden with almost no traffic at night.
When we were waved away by the starter, I remember that the Chevelle’s roar was so loud that my own engine sound got drowned out. The dimly-lit 80 mm tachometer became a central source of information. This was the first time an opponent was running side-by-side from start. Almost at the same moment, we shifted first-to-second and then the second-to-third.
When we got to the point to shift into forth gear, the Chevelle started to move ahead slightly, and the feeling grew that this time I was going to lose for sure. But then, Lasse missed the shift and immediately lost one car length, or more. Of course, when I beat him across the finish line, he demanded a rerun. Slightly excited by all the drama, I declined and said something like this will never happen again. It was the second and final time against a car with slicks, and a worthy end to five months of street racing.
Among the notes it says September 18th, end of season, blown engine. Maybe a bit exaggerated, but when the engine was disassembled, several compression rings were cracked, the camshaft was worn down plus a number of minor flaws. One mistake that was first discovered during the winter’s more extensive measurements was that the rod in number two cylinder had become three tenths shorter. Parts from the previous turbo accident that got stuck between piston and combustion chamber had affected more than was first discovered. The transaxle also needed an overhaul and the differential had cracks and some of the spider gears were in bad shape.
1977 ended with 27 street races and a lot of things to fix with the car. That work kept me busy all winter and well into next season.