The inspiration to build The Silver Gray Beetle rests on different legs and was a relatively thoughtful project. Thanks largely in part to slot car mini-racing in my early teens, an underlying desire for competition grew. During the second half of the 1960s, magazines about motorsport including track racing, Formula 1, NASCAR captured my interest and, above all, the emerging sport of drag racing. Being able to experience of the first competitions at Mantorp Park Raceway strengthened the growing feeling that drag racing could be my future.
At the time, one predominant thought stuck in my mind: most racers in Sweden back then ran 11 to 15 seconds in the quarter mile.
Could a guy like me possible achieve this kind of performance?
In everyday life, I drove old, rusty cars from Volkswagen. At first glance, these hallmarked vehicles renowned for their reliability as the ‘people’s car’ really should be ‘out-of-the-game’ in terms of speed and performance. But then, I remembered reading feature articles written in US car magazines at the time that specifically questioned this somewhat obvious assumption. It was about the first known Volkswagen Type 1 built for drag racing, namely the company EMPI’s promoter “Inch Pincher”. That particular car developed in performance year after year and made low twelve runs in one of the first editions as early as 1967. The chance to achieve similar performance gave new thoughts: imagine what if?…
Soon after, the personal reflections around serious drag racing faded away and instead street racing became the thing I desired to pursue. In the early 70’s, mass imports of used US muscle cars exploded, which largely laid the foundation for today’s US car hobby in Sweden. By helping friends that had bought these foreign muscle cars, my knowledge about their performance grew. During this period, street racing grew in popularity. One place especially was on a strip of road that lead to an industrial area in the suburb Tumba located to the south of Stockholm. We measured up a quarter mile and underwent successive time trials all done with the help of a humble stopwatch. What became eventually obvious to us, among other things, was the difficulty of replicating those similar time results reported in the US magazines. We shouldn’t make a big deal about hand-held timing, but in general there were not many who managed to get below 14.0 seconds.
A few years earlier, an article had appeared in the magazine 1001 Custom and Rod Ideas about Jim Addison. His Plymouth GTX from 1967 with stroked Hemi was presented as “the quickest and fastest street machine in the country” (USA). The car is today known as “The Silver Bullet” and has been published many times. What completely took my breath away in the old article and still gives goose bumps was the final punch line:
”It’s not hard to find Jim Addison’s car. He is proud of it and parks it right outside his (gas) station on Woodward. If you think you can challenge it though, be sure you’ve got plenty going for you. Jim’s car runs in the 10.40 ET range in quarter mile sprints. His top speed is around 135 mph. There’s not much secret about it, and if you can handle the action, he’s ready.”
If anyone is curious, there is a lot to read on Internet. To me, Jim’s story (he passed away in 2005) paved the way towards street racing; a ball that begun to roll and grow during the 70s. The color of his GTX is the reason why The Silver Gray Beetle was finally painted in silver.
The choice of car, –56 Volkswagen type 1, was of course inspired by the famous racecar “Inch Pincher”. The starting point was a rather rusty 33 dollar junk car where the receipt stated that “the buyer commits to have the car approved by authorities or scrap it”. Among one of the first things needed was the search for a brand new floor pan. The resultant belonged to the year models 1964-67 and that meant a later model’s front axle with ball joints and disk brakes were required. At the rear, large type III drums were used and, when they were combined, gave really good stopping power.
In addition to the choice of car, the selection of the engine became the most crucial factor to build the required performance. The key selection criteria was to aim for the simplicity of air-cooled options. Building and tuning a VW engine to the desired level (200 horsepower) back then was very expensive and hardly anything like that worked on the street. Porsche’s different alternatives were out of the question when looking at the sheer cost of what was on offer.
My eyes were opened to a feasible alternative after buying a partially-destroyed Corvair turbocharger that had been disassembled with brute force my eyes. Initially, the idea was to use a VW 1600 engine with turbo. But, after some more reading about the Corvair, the 2.7 litre six cylinder engine became more interesting. This was especially true for the Corsa Spyder turbo engine. By combining parts from the high performance 140 horsepower engine and the Spyder, 200 honest hp should be realistic without spending a lot of money.
A number of junkyard engines were purchased before a 140 hp in better shape was ordered though Ital American Company – the biggest supplier of imported US engines in the 70’s. The manager Bruno Donati complained about the deal because the Corvair engine took up a lot of floor space in the container and was fragile with all its sheet metal shrouds. Normally, the V-eights were stacked with a layer of used tires in between. This often caused air cleaners and valve covers to become hard currency at Ital. However, the 140-horse with turbo was the foundation of my engine build
A funny thing happened when buying parts to fix the broken turbo. Among other things, the previous owner had cut a slot in the center of the turbine wheel in order to use a wrench to take it apart. This was something that certainly spoiled the balancing. The GM part vendor helped out with some of the destroyed parts and gave me a helpful discount due to a stock clearance. When it was time to pay, the salesman asked me whether a new turbine wheel could also be of interest since he said he had one left in stock. “Doubtfully”, I answered, given that it is the turbo’s most expensive part. Quickly, he replied, “Yea, but wait … I will give you a really good discount … 95 percent”! Of course, I bought it.
During my first trip to US and California back in 1975, I paid a visit to a guy in Los Angeles who confirmed to me that the choice of engine was good. Terry Gordon competed successfully (fastest car at several Bug In events) with a low nine-second dragster powered by a turbocharged Corvair engine. He gave me several pieces of advice (including water injection), as well as the moral support that a twelfth at the strip should be easy with the car I was building.
Various articles about Inch Pincher also contributed vital information, among other things, to use the transmission from the Porsche 356. I suspected that Volkswagen’s transmission wouldn’t cope. Back then, the old 356 transmission was common in the car junk yards and prices relatively low except for the engines.
By the way, do you know how to shift a four-speed really fast? Back in 1970, the readers of a US magazine were taught lessons on this very subject by “Mr Bardahl” (Bill Hielscher) who was a successful Pro Stock racer. In short, first-to-second gear (like third-to-fourth gear) was made with the wrist. However, second-to-third gear was the real test. This difficult maneuver namely called for a hard shock from the shoulder with a stiff arm. If something broke, one could probably reconcile in the knowledge that it would have probably happened in the future anyway. The only thing that mattered was that the shift was carried out.
My first clutch proved to be a source of trouble. The very first test drive on a dark, autumn night was exciting to say the least. The car accelerated much faster compared to a 1600 cc VW engine that been fitted to the car earlier, but shouldn’t there be more power? Oh yes. After removing the muffler, it became really wild! The kicking sensation left me pondering whether it could be possible that the tires had broken loose at 70 MPH? After I calmed down and ruminating on the answer for a while longer, it was obvious that my new EMPI clutch had lost grip and not the tires. In response, I used a traditional Volkswagen 200 mm clutch with nine springs reinforced with double springs from a 180 mm bus clutch. This solved the problems for the time being.
The car was taking shape to be race-ready in springtime 1977. An exhaust cut-out was fitted in front of the muffler and the stopwatch showed 15 seconds or a little better. During a test drive, I was stopped by a very excited guy: “Hey, your engine is falling out”! Driving with a partly-open engine lid obviously didn’t look safe to the average bystander. Therefore, a fiberglass lid was cast and rebuilt with a large bump to hide the engine.
During the seventies, I was honored by receiving several different nicknames. The first one “Matlådan”, in Swedish, is a bit tricky to translate into English. If you try Google Translate, you will probably only get confused. It means something like ‘lunch box’.
The second nickname, “The Professor”, is much easier to relate to in terms of its origin and meaning. When compared to all the solid and hard hands found on the average street racer of the era, my hands looked more like someone strained by too much study. This was even more obvious when everyone understood that I regularly wrote down notes. People started to call me professor, but, of course, I’m not a real professor.
Another nickname was “The Bird Watcher”. This particular moniker referenced the fact I have always been a person on the thin side in terms of my stature. The weather can be quite cold when racing at night, so naturally I sometimes used a big, green parka to stay warm.
I found it somewhat amusing that many years later, when I worked as a features editor in a car magazine, my boss very seriously asked me if I really was in fact a bird watcher. In turn, I had to strongly deny this much to his disappointment..
What many people do not know, or have understood, is that an important factor for the success with the car was plainly due to preparation. A thorough checklist would be created to carefully assess and prepare for the opponent. Partly, it was a ritual; something to make me concentrate on the race ahead. But, some details contributed directly to getting a quick start. The parking brake level button was locked in open position and the driver’s seat was moved forward, while the fixed three-point seatbelt was tightened as hard as possible. When racing against some of the faster cars, all non-essential items such as the spare tire, jerry can and tools were removed. However, the importance of a weight reduction of maybe 20 kg probably meant more mentally than making the car faster.
Immediately before start, the exhaust cutout was opened; in other words creating an open system. At one time, a guy wondered if the turbo was “turned on” when the noise levels of the car increased. Many people didn’t understand a turbocharger back then. The engine was then brought up to 2.500-3.000 rpm and, at the same time, slipping on the clutch and preventing the car from moving with the parking brake. By increasing and holding the rev count, engine pressure could be built by the turbo. With close to 70 percent of the weight on the rear tires, this resulted in a strong and winning start before slicks became common in street racing. Getting away off the mark first means a lot against powerful muscle cars that would easily lose their grip on the tarmac in the eagerness to chase.
The downside of slipping the clutch was inevitably a burnt disc and wearing of the pressure plate / flywheel. After a while, the clutch became difficult to use and the engine had be removed, the disc sand blasted and all the bluish-hardened spots removed from the pressure plate and flywheel. This sometimes had to be done several times during a summer to keep the quick start ritual well-tuned.