Page 1 : The Dean Lowry days...

Page 2 : The Dean Lowry days...

Page 3 : Drag Strip article...

Page 4 : The Darrell Vittone days... Soon



- THE EARLY DEAN LOWRY DAYS... :

In the first section devoted to the very early days of the Inch Pincher, the little VW was a mild race car for tracks (remember the Nassau wins...), not a Gasser for the dragstrips... But Joe VITTONE soon had the idea of having his own Gasser to promote his EMPI business... He then contracted the help of Dean LOWRY to build him that drag strip VW sedan that will help testing EMPI high performance parts... The Inch Pincher 1 legendary VW was born, as was the most famous and fastest VW (remember the Champion sparks plugs ads...) all over the world...

Without a doubt, the Inch Pincher is the first competitive VW in history of drag racing...

Above is a mega rare picture from my greatest contributor (and friend by the way) Glenn MILLER. Hey, when was the last time you saw such an early picture of the H/G Inch Pincher... As far as I'm concerned, I think that this pictures might be considered as the earliest ever seen (regarding the H/G version of course...). Crazy! Note the smiling Dean LOWRY at the wheels! Some facts desserve a special attention... The car still remains his front bullet indicator and seats on some Porsche rims. Picture is supposed to be taken in Fall of 1963 after it returned from the Bahama Race with Dan Gurney. That's when the car actually started it's Drag Race Life !

A very cool pictures from Glenn showing that same very early 28 H/Gas car... Stock ride height is evident in this picture! I guess the EMPI pick-up trucks stands in the background!

One of my favourite picture! Now, this is the early complete Inch Pincher crew striking a pose for Glenn camera. They are all smiles :) Did you recognized Darrell and Deano?

Picture by Glenn MILLER at Fontana Raceway in 1964. Note that the front quarter panel is signed "1st in '63", refering to the Nassau wins. It seems that the car sports some stock VW wheels at the rear. I love that picture! It's a thumbnail, click it for bigger one and enjoy...

Another awesome picture of Glenn MILLER taken at Pomona Winternationals in 1964 after winning. This one is from my personnal collection and is autographed by Glenn himself! The little bug now sports typical racing stripes and number reservation on both doors. Note the Rader rims and the fact that onlookers seems to be very impressed that a little VW can go this fast with such a tiny engine...


























Above is a very rare original EMPI poster designed to encourage people to check out the Inch Pincher at the NHRA Winternationals, to be held in early 1967. Lucky owner is Trent BLIVEN.