street car to race car in a weekend? Can an Underdog still be built like that?

[Jim Ratto]

I probably don't know half of how it really went, but I love the story behind my all time favorite VW racecar, Doug Gordon's The Underdog. If I am not mistaken Doug Gordon was running around in his orange sedan with 14-15 sec capability on the street, and on a Friday, Ron Fleming and Sarge convinced him it was time to make it a dedicated race car. Am I right? And by the end of the weekend, the formidable Underdog was born. The cool thing about this piece of history is the sheer amount of enthusiasm and effort these twenty-something year-olds had to pull it off. And look at the mark they and the car left on VW racing history. It's fun to picture these kids ripping the car to shreds, what was then a car that was just a few years old. Spending your weekend tearing all the frivolous crap out of this nice newish VW so a kid could go wring its neck drag racing it. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall wathcing it all happen. I think recently, there was a blip of an article mentioned on Cal Look .com about Berg doing a set of square-ported 40 x 35 dual port heads for Doug Gordon and Ron. Another.... "can you imagine?" deal..... these guys were kind of walking on new ground, those heads were brand new on T3 only, you can see they had been flycut so far that top fin was just cut off, tiny little chambers... what size was that motor, Sarge? 88 x 78? Didn't you end up with the heads later on your 1835 in your '63?
Anyway, to the point here..... could the same thing happen today? Obviously, "kids" today don't have access to a VW that is just a few years old like the DKP 1 boys did, so that could never pan out..... but could a young guy pick up some barn-find or little old lady '65 Bug, spend a weekend gutting it, build a decent, but not over-the-top race motor, and go be competitive? Have things gotten "too engineered" now a days? Instead of a mag and carbs, we're looking at MSD this and that, 2 step, limiters, turbo...etc.  And with as simple as Underdog was didn't it go well into the 11's?
Save the simplicity. Teach your kids to get back to roots. Underdog was pure Cal Look if you ask me.

[j-f]

We have quite the same talk with Nicolas.
Nowadays, the young boy take a second hand car as a gti, vr6, g60, 16V, Crx etc etc and do the same thing as the pioneers of cal look did.
Take a cheap car, work on it and race it.

Maybe the spirit is not the same, but the goal yes. 

[Sarge]

In a word, no.  The variety of parts today is way better then it was thirty five years ago, so it probably wouldn't be the same, simple Underdog.  Sure you could do it, but would you use a stock fuel pump, 010 distributor, Engle 160 cam, welded stroker crank with VW rods, uncharted cylinder heads?  Those days are long gone just like the five year old cars needed to build one.  Might still be fun to try, though!

[Fastbrit]

In a word, no.  The variety of parts today is way better then it was thirty five years ago, so it probably wouldn't be the same, simple Underdog.  Sure you could do it, but would you use a stock fuel pump, 010 distributor, Engle 160 cam, welded stroker crank with VW rods, uncharted cylinder heads?  Those days are long gone just like the five year old cars needed to build one.  Might still be fun to try, though!

I know of an old red '67 lying around. Maybe when I come out next I can chop it up into a race car for something to do between beers...

[Jim Ratto]

In a word, no.  The variety of parts today is way better then it was thirty five years ago, so it probably wouldn't be the same, simple Underdog.  Sure you could do it, but would you use a stock fuel pump, 010 distributor, Engle 160 cam, welded stroker crank with VW rods, uncharted cylinder heads?  Those days are long gone just like the five year old cars needed to build one.  Might still be fun to try, though!

I know of an old red '67 lying around. Maybe when I come out next I can chop it up into a race car for something to do between beers...

yeah good idea, while Sarge runs and gets our restock for the cooler, we can practice using the cutoff wheel and box cutters. I call dibs on the headliner.

[Sarge]

I know of an old red '67 lying around. Maybe when I come out next I can chop it up into a race car for something to do between beers...

[/quote]

yeah good idea, while Sarge runs and gets our restock for the cooler, we can practice using the cutoff wheel and box cutters. I call dibs on the headliner.

Let's see, anyone notice where I put that Claymore and trip wire last week??