Berg's influance on the Quiet Pack exhaust

[Dave Rosique]

This is how I remember the story back around 1972...

It seems in the 60's every "extractor" style exaust seen on VW's used a glasspack for a muffler... mine included. In the early 70's a buddy of mine, showed me his new "quiet" muffler he just purchased from Gene Berg. According to my buddy, Berg had purchased a bunch of government surplus mufflers originally designed to be used on the military Jeep. They all had a part number of 7371000 (you can still find a nos surplus muffler once in a while). These muff's had a very distintive sound to them... much like a QP, only they tended to "buzz" a bit if you were holding your rpm around 3000 or so. As far as I know, this was the first QP style muffler... we simply referred to them as "Berg Muff's"
The inlet was centered, the outlet offset and Berg used a distinct, chrome plated, slightly upswept tailpipe with a very modest flair on the end... very classy. As far as I know, this was the predecessor to the 4-Tuned and then later S&S, and of course the Taiwan stuff we see today.  I believe Berg may have even worked with 4-Tuned on their systems... not sure.

Anybody else have any input on this?

Sarge??

~DR.

[Sarge]

Bob Sanchez and John Rue were the 4-Tuned guys back in the day.  Bob passed years ago; I saw John at Bug-In 32.  Pretty sure they were the ones who did Gene's exhaust stuff back then.  I remember buying an S&S from Dean Lowry for the '69 that was a steet / heaterbox set-up with a nice merged collector and a quiet pack... all for around $35 (a fortune back then )...very nice!  After all the noisy glasspacks I'd been through, the QP was really the shit. Cool post, Dave!

[Jim Ratto]

I seem to (very) vaguely remembering a photo of a 1973-74 Bug in stadium parking lot in Anaheim, with a decibel meter being used to test the sound of the "jeep" muffler. Maybe it was an article in one of the mags.... it was Gene I think either in his de rigueur plaid long sleeve shirt or a windbreaker and maybe Bruce Simurda or somebody testing the muffler.

I liked John @ Fourtuned (later Phoenix)... always a nice guy to buy from. We bought tons of systems in the nineties when I was @ BH.

My first merged header was a 4T 1-1/2" with a matching set of dual quiet packs. 

[deano]

The release of the "QP" muffler was quite a turning point for street cars. At the time, excessive noise fix-it tickets were more than common, so this tamed down muffler was the nuts. But not everyone was impressed with the less noise, and look of an oval-shaped muffler hanging off the back end of your Bug. Some felt the VW's sound/noise was effected, while others didn't like their looks. I worked at a muffler shop at the time, and they were a pain to retro-fit an existing system. But the bottom line was, if they kept the fuzz off your tail pipe, they were worth the extra bucks. I think Sarge was the first one that had one around my part of town (Baja La Habra). There was also a debate raging about whether or not they made the same hp as the glass pack mufflers did. And two of them? That was Aronson's "pipe" dream!

[Sam K]

I may be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that the first dual quiet pack system was built for Keith Goss' chopped bug.

[deano]

No, it was on Greg Aronson's 356 Porsche.....

[volksnut]

Treuhaft had their blue units that were nice too...I believe it was more towards the late 70's though

[Rennsurfer]

I'm old so my memory isn't the greatest... but I remember seeing Four-Tuned headers (and other products) in Berg's catalogues back in the early '80s. I had a regular extractor with single (still have that muffler) and dual quiet packs. Later, I had them build me a 1½" merged collector header with a pair of nicely super tucked mufflers. Seeing Mike Martinez's black choptop inspired me to have the mufflers almost out of sight, with only the long chrome slightly flared tips showing. They made some very nice looking/working systems. Even though I was an S&S dealer... HAHA!!

It doesn't surprise me if Gene had a lot to do with the first q.p. VW system and it's concept. Also seems rather fitting that he worked with Four-Tuned.

[OgCalLook]

Cool thread -
I used to deal with John at Fourtuned back in 75 - 79 when they were on Ordway street in Riverside. I worked at a shop one street over from them, and installed hundreds of their exhausts.
The rumor was that they made more HP than Glass packs, and they sounded so much better.
I remember John saying they were surplus Jeep mufflers, and they came packed in cosmoline, which was a mess to clean, but I never knew about the Berg connection. I always thought Fourtuned originated the jeep QP/muffler.

Your right Dave, they would resonate pretty good at 3000 RPMs, they were pretty quiet, so I would hold that RPM just to make noise. 
 

[Bruce]

All of a sudden, vintage NOS jeep mufflers just got real expensive.

[alex d]

hmmmmmm itseems  that would be part #WO-A-6118, most jeep online part stores list it between $50-70

http://jeepdraw.com/images/jeepdraw/ADOBE_ACROBAT_FILES/GROUP4-EXHAUST-SNL-G-503.pdf

[Sarge]

Cool thread -
I used to deal with John at Fourtuned back in 75 - 79 when they were on Ordway street in Riverside. I worked at a shop one street over from them, and installed hundreds of their exhausts.
The rumor was that they made more HP than Glass packs, and they sounded so much better.
I remember John saying they were surplus Jeep mufflers, and they came packed in cosmoline, which was a mess to clean, but I never knew about the Berg connection. I always thought Fourtuned originated the jeep QP/muffler.

Your right Dave, they would resonate pretty good at 3000 RPMs, they were pretty quiet, so I would hold that RPM just to make noise. 
 

Welcome to The Lounge, Tom!  Hopefully you'll post some pics of your car and tell us your story soon .