Cal-Look.com - Nostalgia Corner by El Dub

CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH THE INCH PINCHER : by Dave CORMACK

I guess it was in 1971, or thereabouts, and I was a confirmed Muscle Car guy. I had a Hemi Roadrunner at the time, and my friend Steve had a bright green Hemi-Cuda. We had taken the Carter AFB carbs off, and installed a set of 3310 (780 c.f.m.) Holley carbs on it. Remember, this was way before the advent of the double-pumper Holleys. Anyway, we had done that, put in a Scheifer Rev-Lok clutch, and a set of Doug's headers. This, coupled with the Casler "Cheater" slicks and some traction bars that, as part of the style back then reached clear up to the bellhousing, had given Steve a good, strong, high-11 second car. We had gone to Orange County International Raceway, for night racing, to check out some jetting changes we had made to the Holley carbs.

The car was running real good, and when I saw this little Orange Bug, with the name "Pincher" or something on it, I thought that this was quite unfair, that the track officials had made a mistake, and they were going to have to let that little "Pincher" bug get halfway down the strip before they ever let Steve go in the 'Cuda. Imagine my surprise when the Christmas Tree lights came down evenly, and imagine my even greater surprise when, by the time Steve had that Hemi-Cuda hooked up and moving, that lil' ol' Bug was halfway through second gear, and thinking about third!

The hemi-Cuda was catching up quick on the top end, but alas, the race was for a quarter mile, and my friend's 'Cuda got resoundingly SPANKED by that Bug. I literally stormed into the pits, and demanded to see what that driver of the Bug had in the way of an engine. I was sure that he had a small block Chevy in that thing, even though it sorta sounded like a Bug engine, although much, much more, how could I put this, angry. The driver, a Mr. Vittone, was glad to pull the decklid pins off and show me that, although missing a generator and fan shroud, and having an additional carburetor, it was indeed a VW motor that had just annihilated a Hemi-Cuda.

Of course, now I know that Steve had been bit by the sting of the infamous Empi Inch Pincher. It really did something to me that night as I had never regarded the VW as anything but cheap, utilitarian transportation until then, and I have never been the same since. My friend Steve traded in the Hemi 'Cuda, and promptly purchased an Empi GTV, and installed a set of Weber carbs, Okrasa roller crank, and a set of slipper-skirt Empi pistons and cylinders on it. We had a lot of fun with that car, and made more than a few dollars off unsuspecting Camaro, Mustang, and other Muscle Car owners showing them what a VW could do.

DATSUN EMPI GTV's? : Memory by Glenn MILLER and more EMPI Datsun stuff by El Dub...

When VW started to give Joe Vittone crap about the VWs that were being "tricked-out" at his dealership, Economotors, and the other VW dealerships buying his EMPI dress-up items, he started thinking about extending the GTV to the Datsun line. Here is the prototype, and yes, there were some that hit the streets.

Man were those first ones UGLY !

More by El Dub below =>

I really don't know why but I always tought that Datsun cars were cool, even if ugly... Am I becoming a Datsun guy??? *Laughing* I remember playing with Datsun matchbox toys when I was a kid... Nostalgia, nostalgia...

When I discovered EMPI made some stuffs for the foreign Datsun cars (DDS made some too...), I thought no I definitely want a Datsun car... Joking...

Note the typical GTV stripes and the EMPI 8 spokes...

Some Datsun cars even made it into old EMPI catalogs... Those two pictures appeared in the '71 catalog. The Datsun featured was the best looking ever : the 240Z series. EMPI product was the LASER STREAK striping kit.

Another cool picture of an ugly (is it another word?) Datsun... This one is from the '69 EMPI catalog... EMPI product was the 14' wheels made especially by EMPI for Datsun owners...

Hre's what was written in this catalog about those wheels :

"Breathtaking styling, engineered excellence and tested strenght - 3 ingredients that gives EMPI's GT wheels for Datsun cars that tremedous edge over the competition. Of course, that is not the whole story. Countless hours of styling and design work spent to perfect a superlight alloy wheel that delivers the freshest "IN" look for Datsun automobiles..."

Hey, where are those EMPI Datsun today?

INCH PINCHER BANTER : by Glenn MILLER

Drop-in strokers over the years! Ever hear of a Rabbit rod stroker? Not really successful for drag racing as the crank journal is so small. The VW 1600cc crank is offset ground to the Rabbit rod journal size, and in doing so, you pick up additional stroke, and uses Rabbit rods with the bolts turned around.

This process goes back to the early Inch Pincher days when Deano (Dean Lowry) took an Okrassa 74 mm 1200 crank and offset-ground the pin size to the 36 hp size, for an additional stroke of about 6 mm. With some 90mm pistons and cylinders the end result was the first 200 HP VW engine! The rods he hand built from 36 hp bottoms and 1500 cc tops.

Boxed and beautiful, I still have some today - little more than a historical paperweight!

EMPI display engine - picture by Glenn MILLER... What about a duplicate in your engine bay today... Good luck ;)