Empi Sportster Origins/ my 2 cents.

[dustymojave]

The one I was talking about is owned by a close friend and I will be at his home for his daughter's wedding on Saturday. I plan to talk to him about it then.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[yankee1919]

Hello All, yes I got a CHIMP from New Mexico. I hoping to pass the CHP Verification soon and get it back on the road.

[yankee1919]

Have the Chimp in storage and will redo the rear end for and Vw IRS.

[dustymojave]

Yup. That's a Chimp.

The one I'm familiar with is in hands that plan to keep it. It has had many years history with my friend's dad. That's who I worked on it for. So the family intends to hang on to it.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[BL3Manx]

[yankee1919]

I got new pics and will start taking measurements.

[BL3Manx]

Just found another Chimp

[yankee1919]

Thank you BL3Manx,

Its amazing we are finding these cool rigs.

[dustymojave]

To take this conversation back to it's original theme...
I have long felt that the EMPI Sportster was a clear visual imitation of Scott McKenzie's Chimp and the later Burro buggy, with structure made of sheet steel instead of the steel tube with aluminum sheet skin of those other 2.

Bruce Meyers' Manx was an imitation of those and the Peppertree Automotive 'Rivits' buggy, with inspiration from the VW Shwimmwagen of WW2...the connected front and rear fenders of both Rivits and the Manx obviously come from the Schwimmwagen. The monocoque fiberglass structure of the initial dozen Manxes was not an original idea, Lotus was using the same monocoque body/chassis concept in the Lotus Elite. Meyers saw issues, including cost to produce, in the monocoque chassis and switched to a shortened VW pan for the Manx 2 just as was used for the Chimp and EMPI Sportster. Essentially ALL fiberglass buggies and a great many VW kit cars were then imitations of the Manx 2.

Spinning off from the Chimp, was the pan rail, using a modified VW pan with usually a roll bar and maybe replaced sheet metal of the VW pan with expanded steel and maybe some tubing used to support a gas tank and the steering column.

The tube frame rail also spun off from the Chimp and the Burro. Scott built a single seat buggy with a VW tunnel with some tube structure and some aluminum body panels in about 1960. Then in about 1966 or 67, Gil George of Funco started building tube frame buggies using the VW beam and torsion that were the 1st well designed truss structure as is still being used for most all tube frame rails and still sold by Berrien/Acme.

So that was the genesis of VW-based buggies. At least in my view of history having grown up around and involved in such cars since the early days.

Scott McKenzie started out building Chimps at his folks' home just a few miles from where I was born. Scott's buddy Bill Harkey had San Fernando Body Shop which later became San Fernando Buggy, makers' of Glitterbug Fiberglass buggies and Hi Jumper tube frames was right down the street from the home I grew up in, in fact 3 of my homes in a row were just down the street from San Fernando Buggy, and my neighbor across the street worked for Bill, and my brother's father in law worked with Tiny Thompson and Les Choate to build Burro buggies in the early and mid 60s, then managed the buggy business for Bill Harkey in the late 60s.

There were a number of my neighbors who had Baja Bugs (years before the magazine people wrote about the Emory's Baja Bug that the magazines call the 1st Baja Bug)and sand rails (some of them VW-based) in the early 60s, long before fiberglass body parts or commercially made buggies other than the Chimp. A guy on my block had an EMPI Sportster in the early 60s. I 1st did business with Scott McKenzie in the early 1970s and soon was Tech Inspecting his offroad race cars. In those days, the San Fernando Valley was Mecca to all sorts of motorsports activities. Hot Rods, drag racing, offroading and offroad racing, sports car road racing, Sprint cars to Jalopies and all sorts of short track circle racing, motorcycle racing and riding, go karts etc. And the aerospace industry that helped that motorsports activity was all around and many motorsports folks worked in the aerospace industry. My dad was a hot rodder and raced midgets and track roadsters in the 1940s. Then after he served in the Korean War, dad got involved in Sports car racing where he met my mom.

One of the 1st offroad buggies I ever saw was a guy a block up who started with a Model T frame, body shell and radiator shell from about 1925, put in a flathead Ford V8 engine and trans with lots of hotroad goodies, dual carbs, aluminum intake and heads, tube headers, etc., wrecking yard 1950s rear axle, front beam axle from a 1930s Ford, transverse leaf suspension, simple roll bar, 15" steel wheels with 7.00-15 front tires and 8.50 rears, cut-down windshield, steering column and wheel from a wrecking yard, the bucket seats and gas tank behind the body were aircraft surplus. He had welded a piece of tubing made by the local blacksmith shop to connect an outer wheel rim with the center removed to regular inner wheels to make dual rear wheels for the dunes, using ribbed implement tires. The body shell and engine were moved back til the body almost touched the rear tires. Looked much like a T-bucket hot rod, but sat up high for ground clearance. It had a canvas top that fastened to the top of the windshield and roll bar with snaps. He had trailer fenders that he had on it sometimes, and off at other times. It was licensed, and he went all over southern California offroading it. Desert, mountains and sand dunes. He and my dad knew each other as they both worked at Lockheed building exotic aircraft. He told dad and me one time about having taking it with a buddy and a couple other guys with another such buggy and gone camping down Baja. Showed us a few pictures from that and some others from local excursions. I last saw that "buggy" in about 1965, then later he had a fiberglass buggy.

So buggies and such are not new stuff to me. I know there are others around these forums who've been around it long as me too.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.