Skip to main content

Gallery: Flat Flours Take on the Salt Flats

[See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com]

Back in September Volkswagen hit 205 mph with the Beetle LSR on the Bonneville Salt Flats, but it wasn’t the only VW on the salt.

The World of Speed event at Bonneville hosts a remarkable number of cars and classes, including the 37 HP VW Challenge.

It’s “amateur racing at its purest,” says Barry Burlile, who runs the challenge, because it’s a chance for enthusiasts to try out their VWs at full speed.

160902VW01_Bville_0548-rz1

As a result of all the classes, and the diminutive engines, not all records are mind bendingly fast. Often the cars don’t even hit triple digits, as was the case for a 1960 Single Cab Transporter that set a speed record at—you may want to sit down for this—57 mph in the SS36 Bus class.

But what the event sometimes lacks in speed, it makes up for in joy. Just about anyone can race, even Jan Atkinson, a great-grandmother, who learned to race when she was 73 years old.

“Jan’s husband taught her how to drive a stick shift and she went out and set a record in a 1972 Super Beetle in a new class” at 119.75 mph, says Burlile.

It’s all just one more example of Volkswagen living up to its name.

[source/pictures: vw.com]

The post Gallery: Flat Flours Take on the Salt Flats appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2ifD5Pd
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster Review

“Supercars just don’t excite me anymore.” These words, spoken to me over a month ago by another journalist, friend, and (so-called) enthusiast were echoing in my head for far too long, but they’ve finally been drowned out. Drowned out by the wail of a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine mounted in the middle of the new Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster. My friend’s point is that back in the good old days, there was a crop of supercars that captured the imagination with amazing style, sounds, performance, and more. Today, it seems like everything is capable of supercar performance, with large luxury sedans outdoing some of the best and most dedicated teams of car nuts, while former pillars of automotive excellence are suddenly pumping out family-friendly SUVs. Beyond that, another league of supercars, dubbed hypercars have cropped up with hybrid gas-electric powertrains that make magical things happen quickly, but at the cost of the acoustic drama, visual flair, and engag...

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

The 10 Most Expensive VWs at Barrett-Jackson

Barrett-Jackson just wrapped up its 46th annual Scottsdale auction, which set all kinds of records, including the sale of Kindig-It Design’s 1965 21-Window Deluxe Bus for $302,500 (pictured above and below). Not only did that bus set an auction record, it was the highest priced Volkswagen in Scottsdale that week. While it outdid the next closest VW by quite a margin, it wasn’t the only high priced VW at the show. Here, are the highest priced VWs from the auction: 1. $302,500: 1965 Type II 21-Window Deluxe Bus  Featured on Velocity Channel’s Bitchin’ Rides, this microbus was completely restored by Kindig-it Design and repainted in Mercedes Black and Bentley Magnolia White. With a 1915cc 120 hp flat four out back and a 4-speed transmission, this bus sits on 17″ wheels. 2. $143,000: 1967 21-Window Deluxe Bus Not sure if you noticed a theme here, but we have another 21-window bus in black and white, but this time the colors are flipped and it has a 2,027 cc engine. Comes with a ...