The World Famous Darwin Beetle
This is one fun little car. Drive it to a car show, road race it, set a Bonneville record, wave at the cop as you blast past. Notice the magazine articles, the timing tags on the dash. Thatcher Darwin was in the Throttlers Hot Rod Club and was a stalwart at the dry lakes where he could be found in the timing tower. Ted Cannon made the first clocks used for timing at El Mirage and Muroc. Ted's brother John and Thatch would run the clocks for the events. The Beetle started out with a blown Cad V-16 before the war. Yes a crank driven blower behind the radiator. During the war it got a ford flathead V8. Even drag raced it at the Nats.
Antique Nationals
June 6, 2010
Fontana California
By Dave Seely and Roger Rohrdanz
The Forever Four club puts on a couple of events every year for years to scratch the itch for speed. In case you are not familiar with them, they continue to extract relatively large horsepower and reliability out of antique four bangers. They run a hill climb on an abandoned stretch of old route 66 for four bangers only, and they run the Antique Nats.
The Nats have been held for years up in the high desert. They tell me it was a friendly (small) venue. Three years ago when that facility was no longer available the drag strip in Fontana at the California speedway and has grown into a real event. Which for racers meant more time spent waiting in line, and fewer runs. Oh well the price of popularity.
Where else can you see 1930's sprint cars sitting next to chopped, channelled, lowered, and sectioned 27 T coupe rat rods? Or the Beerster with the beautifully detailed Buick straight 8 and hand made body that rallyed across America in the Great race? Larkin, you outdid yourself!! Or a chevy powered champ car? Or, or or...well you get the idea. Man what a variety.
I have never drag raced before, but I have road raced the Darwin Special, (and even set the XF/VOT record at the Wendover White dyno), but how hard could drag racing be? It's paved, and straight and only a quarter mile long! Shoot stomp it through the gears. I was shooting for 100 mph, very attainable for a car like the Darwin.
Just like always as a racer we sweat out the tech inspection. You think, 'dangit, what were the dates on my safety harness' or 'did I wipe the oil off of the bottom of the pan' or, well, you know the drill. The techs mumbled as he went over my car, handed me the paperwork, looked at me and said, “what the hell are you still doing here? Get that pile out of here!” Techs, ya gotta love 'em.
I was running in the street legal (Hey, shut up, it has a license plate!!) flathead/inliner powered class. The lanes next to us would file past to make their runs. At one point a 1953 F3 pickup was next to me. The look he was going for was 'barn find' the look he achieved was 'road kill'. The tires were weather checked, the gas tank cap was a cotton work glove (made by Molotov as I recall) it was missing lug nuts and smelled like it was running the original factory gas. By golly he romped it of the starting line and spun the right rear all the way down the track, smoke pouring out from all over. Cool, at least he isn't afraid to run it, even though he should be. If you gave him $6500 it could have been your one legged trip down the nostalgia drag strip.
Steve Serr brought his gorgeous miller head reproduction. It really is his design by now, it is so much more refined than the original. He was also showing off his T5 to enclosed driveshaft conversion. As always beautifully executed. The folks from Taylor engineering were there with their bottom end stuff, drilled for oil pressure and counterbalanced crank
