TheSamba.com :: View topic - Cool vintage photos - Oval-Window Beetles

Tue Feb 09, 2021 9:46 am

Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:06 pm

This is the location seen today of the first Feb 7th photo above with the oval and a large tailfinned American beauty. This is the 1766 Josiah Chownings Tavern at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:56 pm

That’s really cool. Thanx for sharing that 8)

Thu Feb 11, 2021 2:14 am

Pogel wrote:

Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:57 am

This structure, country, year, does it still stand? Refurbished? Torn down.
Thanks

Thu Feb 11, 2021 11:06 am

aa390392 wrote:

This structure, country, year, does it still stand? Refurbished? Torn down.
Thanks

It's Berlin in 1957 according to a quick Google search that gave me this page
https://flashbak.com/berlin-in-the-summer-of-1957-by-willy-pragher-438126/

A lot of other cool photos with VWs there too

Thu Feb 11, 2021 11:18 am

aa390392 wrote:

This structure, country, year, does it still stand? Refurbished? Torn down.
Thanks

That is the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche". It was left standing as a memorial and a modern Church was built next to it.

Thu Feb 11, 2021 2:51 pm

Thanks Md / Ev. For being such a complex society, we sure seem to construct some bla'sa structures. No more pillars of the earth stuff..

Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:30 am

Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:00 am

Tue Feb 16, 2021 9:16 pm

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2021/02/15/carspo...2021-02-16

Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:15 am

berlin

from an interesting movietone film about the power struggle for berlin after the war. more beetles/buses can be seen and a good segment for those who ask - 'what's that ruined building in the background?'

Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:00 am

Taken from a Facebook page: Auto salvage yard in Uppsala, Sweden in the mid to late 1950’s

Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:04 pm

I'd say early to mid 1960's: there's a 1957 Opel Olympia Rekord and maybe a 1958 Vauxhall Victor.

Sat Feb 20, 2021 1:24 pm

Oval window Beetles in the 1964 Bahamas Speed Weeks. Excellent photos by Dave Friedman, part of The Collections of the Henry Ford. Minor enhancements by me. The '64 Speed Weeks car races were held in late Nov. thru early Dec. at the Oakes Course, part of the Nassau Sports Center southwest of Nassau on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. Among the many sports car races was a Beetle race, driven by drivers of the high-powered Nassau Trophy race cars during the week.

The prominent oval window Beetle was #9, an orange '56 driven by the American Dan Gurney. Mr. Gurney drove the same car in the 1963 event and won, so for the '64 race you can see "1st in '63" painted on a few areas of the car. You may recognize the Beetle as EMPI's demo car, which soon after these races was reborn as the Inch Pincher drag racer. His parents moved to Riverside California after Dan's high school graduation. Although I don't know how he came to race this Beetle, it seems likely that Joe Vittone of EMPI/Economotors which was also located in Riverside, took note of this home town racing hero.

Arrival at the port. Note the "transport wheels", possibly simply reversed stockers.

Mr. Gurney was nearly 6'4" tall (1 m 93) so that the Beetle probably afforded sufficient headroom even with the racing helmet.

Race action.

The EMPI-prepared Beetle was surprisingly fast, though I have not been able to find detailed information as to the engine modifications. Here Mr. Gurney is hounding fellow Beetle racer and often rival-driver in other races, A.J. Foyt in a '63 or '64 Beetle.

Mr. Gurney with other racers. The race car in the foreground was his entry in the Nassau Trophy race, a Lotus 19B Ford. He set the fastest lap in that race in this car.

Sat Feb 20, 2021 10:57 pm

Great photos!

What happened was Gurney's VW was so fast that he drafted and pushed A.J. Foyt into the lead, and at the end passed him to win himself. In impound, the EMPI VW was disqualified due to shimmed valve springs and flycut heads. EMPI protested that the modifications did not go beyond stock specs, but Foyt was still declared the winner. (Allowable modifications included lightened flywheel, larger carb venturis and any exhaust system.)

My own oval window wears a tribute stripe to this car.

Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:12 am

The photographer of those 1964 Speed Weeks photos which I posted above, Dave Friedman, has at least 1700 photos in that collection from the '63 thru '65 or '66 events, covering all of the numerous races on the week's program. I have about 10 more photos of the '64 VW Beetle event which I'll post soon in the '58-'67 thread, since there were only 2 ovals in that race.

Do you know if the EMPI Beetle still had a 36 hp engine or a 40 hp, since it appears as though the rules were relatively strict- implying that a year-correct engine would be needed?

Here's a related article from felix ehrhardt's gallery, nicely showing the "drifting" technique you mentioned from the '64 race. The article is from the Jan. 1965 edition of the popular German magazine "Auto, Motor und Sport". A cleaned-up version of his translation of photo #5 caption is "Not less than 1000 Dollars was endowed to the VW race. Gurney No.9 had such a strong car that he could manage to push Foyt`s car to give him more speed. Before the finish line Gurney passed Foyt. Gurney was disqualified and the dollars were given to Foyt..."

I found a shot in your gallery that shows a dual-port engine in your blue Oval, earning it the "racing" stripes.