marsh

The Vee.....
This is my pride and joy, widely known as "The SPLAT Attack". I bought the car back in 1986, when I was living in Indiana. The car was originally orange, and thelog book that came with the car lists it as a "Wessel". The story I was told by the previous owner says that it is one of three hand made cars built by a few friends in the early seventies. (if anyone out there knows any more than that, I would love to hear it) I autocrossed it in the upper midwest for one season before moving back to New Hampshire, bringing the car with me. Following a divorce, the car sat till early 1990, when one of my best friends, Scott Grant, currently the head fabricator for A.J. Foyt Racing, in Mooresville, N.C., suggested we get serious and update the car, with the intention of winning every time out. After picking up a new copy of the rule book, we stretched every loophole to come up with the combination shown here. The book listed a new classification called "Solo Vee" which allowed some useful changes from the original "Formula Vee" specs, such as, any tire and wheel combo, and increasing displacement to 1600cc. Scott welded in front beam adjusters, added a Z-bar camber compensator, I got a set of wide rims welded up at R&R Wheel in Conn., and a trick set of tires from Hoosier. I did the bodywork and painted it myself. After some creative motor tweaking (some things I won't tell you about) the motor now reliably turns over 8,000 RPM, and revs VERY quickly! The car now has 3/4 in. of ground clearance, a 1/2 gal fuel bottle, die hard gel cell, 4 into 1 exhaust with a small supertrapp, and has won 31 of the last 33 autocross events it was entered in, setting FTD (fastest time of the day) in every one of them. The car won Modified Class Champion, Autocross Series Champion, and Overall Club Championship for the Cumberland Motor Club of Portland Maine in both the 1990, and 1991 seasons. It has only been run occaisionally since then, but gets started regularly to make sure the motor stays free. Sorry to say, life goes on, and being newly re-married, with 2 kids, the car is now up for sale. I am asking $3500. comes with a trailer with tire rack, and some spares. e-mail davem@lr.net for more info.

The Buggy....
I've owned lots of great cars, but this is the MOST FUN car I've ever owned! This picture was taken in early May, at the top of the Mount Washington Auto Road, in Gorham New Hampshire. As near as any of us can tell, the body is a clone of a Manx, but apparently not an original. The chassis is a very early 60's beetle, shortened 14 inches. the motor is pretty much a 1641cc DP. The first changes made after I got the car in Jan '97, were to the electrical system. Since I am a former IASCA PRO autosound competitor, and was working at a stereo shop at the time, I knew more juice would be needed than the stock generator would put out. My dad helped me put on a Kymco Super 75 alternator, boosted to 85 amps. since there were no other accessories on the car, that would do for a start. Next, I added an Alpine CD changer control unit, NOT an am/fm/cd radio. The advantages here were it was on 2 inches tall, 4 inches wide, and on 1/2 inch deep, taking up almost no dash space, especially in depth, 'cause the wiper motor and arms are right behind the dash. next I put in two Rockfor Fosgate amplifiers, a Punch 200, and a Punch 60. running a Rockford DVC 10" subwoofer in a small fiberglass enclosure I made to fit up inside the passenger side of the dash, and a pair of alpine 6 1/2" coax speakers in the dash. More was coming, but that would hold for a while. I then made all new interior panels, padded them, and wrapped them in black vinyl, and made some steel brackets for mounting rear seat seatbelts for my kids. The wheels are from a Camaro Z28.
Currently the car is completely stripped down, undergoing a complete facelift, including new wiring, new stereo, filling some old mounting holes in the bodywork, new dashboard and guages, new paintjob, new interior, and best of all, My Friend Scott Grant, who constructed the motor listed in the Formula Vee story, has assembled a new motor which is waiting to go in. The new motor started as an 1835cc Gex HP longblock, to which he added a high flow oil pump with spin-on filter, new 4 into 1 exhaust with stinger pipe, MSD billet distributor, MSD blaster coil, and aCrane computer ignition controller. The heads have the ports opened up some, oversize valves, hi-rev springs, performance cam, and lots of heavy duty parts inside so it'll have a very long life. Stay tuned for pictures when it's done, later in the spring of '01.