The Beetle Bomb

The Volkswagen may be the most practical invention since the zipper. It goes almost everywhere, and it does almost anything. It never touches a drop of water, and sips gasoline daintily, as if through a straw. It is a durable first car, a dependable second car, a disposable station car, a playpen for the kids, and a kennel for the family dog. Now the Volkswagen has a new, bolder occupation: it is off to the race track--squealing brakes, crashing gears, smoking tires and all.

To sports-car buffs with pinched pockets and Mittyesque visions of checkered flags, Volkswagen racing is serious business. Grand Prix cars are strictly for pros, Ferraris are for millionaires, and Corvettes are for finance companies. The Formula Junior was supposed to be every man's racer--a pint-sized Grand Prix car that offered most of the thrills for a fraction of the cost. But prices quickly shot up to $7,000 or more.

Stripe Down the Hood. At least, the new Formula Vee (for Volkswagen) class seems inflation-proof. Anybody who has a spare Beetle lying around the garage can turn it into a reasonable facsimile of a Grand Prix car--cigar-shaped body, roll bar and all--by buying a kit for $945. An extra $1,000 buys a brand-new Volkswagen engine, plus a special gearbox, rear axle and suspension--and $2,495 buys the whole 825-lb. bomb from the factory. The family sedan can even be raced as is: just painting a stripe down the hood or a number on the door is enough to transform it into a "touring class" racing machine.

It is all a gas--even for an old pro like Dan Gurney, who has raced everything from putt-putting go-karts to the snorting monsters of Indianapolis. "You can't get confused," says Gurney. "You can even yell at the other drivers." At the Bahamas Speed Weeks, while martini glasses tinkled and bountiful blondes chased their heroes through the pits, Gurney took the wheel of a bright orange Volkswagen and challenged all comers in a 103-mile race. His car was a 1956 sedan with 250,000 miles on the speedometer. It was, in fact, his personal car in Nassau--and his wife fretted nervously while inspectors stripped it apart to make sure that no slick mechanic had installed a Cadillac engine. "I hope they can get it back together," she said. "This is our transportation."

Open Door. The race was run strictly according to the book. There was a Le Mans-type running start for the 17 sedan drivers, and the 18 Formula Vees had to give the sedans a one-minute head start. The speeds were low--"Sometimes I can get up to about 70 m.p.h.," confided one racer, "if the wind isn't too bad"--and so were the risks. But the racket was realistic: "Why it sounds just like a race," mused a spectator.

Even in a Volkswagen, class tells. Gurney was all the way into the first corner before he shut the door of his sedan. Only once each lap--on a particularly tricky corner--did he bother to touch his brakes. The rest of the time, his VW was flat out. "You've got to keep the revs up there and use them," he explained. The pace was enough to discourage all but the stoutest-hearted competitors. "I tried to run his kind of race," said one, "but I didn't have the nerve." At the finish, Gurney was a full minute ahead of the nearest sedan. His average speed: 65 m.p.h.

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