This excellent little racer briefly showed itself on my TV screen yesterday - it looked pretty cool:
I dig a bit of Doogling (Google digging) and found some interesting background info, but couldn't bring myself to start a one-car thread. Today I found one picture of a different home-brewed Bug racer, which means this is no longer a one-car thread. welcome to the home-brewed Beetle Special thread!
Exhibit two: A Bug racer from the Caribbean.
Now back to the silver beastie: The Rutan 'Bathtub' Special
This is the car back in 1957!
There's a bit of text on the same page I found it:
The picture of Bill in front of the "original" Bathtub was from a hillclimb put on by the Westchester Sportscar Club in Garrison, New York, on May 30, 1957. Bill took tenth in the under 1,500cc modified class and I took third with my MG TD. The second is his Lester MG at Mount Equinox a year or two earlier. He bought it from Duncan Black (of Black and Decker), when Duncan bought Bill Spears's 4.5-liter Ferrari.
Bill told me one day at the old course in Thompson, Connecticut, that he would beat the 550 RS Porsches for the first three or four laps, but then the grease seals in the TC rear axle would start to leak grease onto the brake linings. Sure enough, he led the race for several laps until his brakes became ineffective, allowing a couple of the Spyders to get by.
He was a great competitor and a very good machinist. Notice, no roll bars or fire suits.
Andrew A. Drummond
Pawling, New York
PS: My MG TD, in modified form [below]. I had two heads, one was production legal with the Mark II valves and compression, and the one I ran at the hillclimb had the small TD valves but had 160 thousandths cut off and ran 12:1 compression on it. The engine in it that day was .060" overbored with the factory AEG 122 racing cam, and head and manifold were polished and ported. The carbs were 1½ inches.
Bill's VW had a very modified VW, mixed with Porsche parts, engine. He would heat the Castrol R castor oil up by jacking the rear up and placing a small alcohol stove under the crankcase so it was preheated when he started the engine. I am not sure which of us had the noisier car, but his was definitely faster.
from: www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2011/12/01/hmn_feature12.html
1961 this time! 'Bill Ruttan setting the standing Mt. Washington Auto Road gravel record'
Here's a more recent pic with it looking rather splendid on low profile tyres:
