Old Blue, a former US race car was flip crashed, flipped over and was all into pieces, they let crush into a cube, and kept it behind the Lyle Cherry’s shop, until we found it…
Some of you might have seen this phrase in a previous post while others might have seen Old Blue on the BBT display in EBI and Le Bug Show… We’ve made a promise to our visitors to put the whole story online so here’s the story written by one of his original drivers, Dennis.
This picture is the Old Blue Gas Car running in L/Gas at Green Valley Raceway here in North Richland Hills TX. It used to be called Smithfield TX. This was the blue square hulk of crushed sheet metal that lived behind Lyles shop for all those years after I rolled it over and over one night at Green Valley. A Camaro in the race before had blown up a torque convertor and the track crew did a poor job of cleaning it up. I got in the slippery ATF and the tires spun right at the finish line. Bad crash! This shot was taken with me (Dennis) driving and is just past the finished line after I whipped up on that Chevy II Nova. Boy those were the “Good Old Days”. This was the old Mel Croan car out of Houston that Lyle bought.
The next picture is my favorite picture of the Old Blue race car. That shot was taken and a small East Texas Track called Hallsville. That track was so sticky that day after they had sprayed it with VHT that the 1st time trail pass I left the line at about 6800rpm and dropped the clutch and the car stood up so high it broke the stinger off the back and I almost took out the Christmas tree lights. Next round (when this picture was taken) we put another stinger on it and I raised the leaving RPM to about 7300 and it left like this the rest of the day. Man that car left hard and was a blast to drive. The fans would climb the fences and scream for that little bug when we came back down the return road from a pass! That was way before Lyle built wheelie bars. It was a handful nut a blast to drive.
The last picture is actually the oldest one of the three. This is not me driving but Rick Johnson who drove the car before I did. He also had the Small Wonder University Volkswagen white chopped top car. This is also at Green Valley in Smithfield TX. Note that it had two of the four BRMS that the car came with. For that run the set of slicks that were used were on stock steel VW rims.
One of BBT’s friends of the house came with this news about the old Kombi and the official stop of the production of this beloved car! This special series has a very special finishing and will cost twice as much as the regular Kombi with only 600 units production planned.
We take your orders now…. Available through the BBT network! Please contact Bob for more info; bob@bbt4vw.com
Here we are again, a new BBT Blog and a new Friday product update. Not a huge one but no less interesting.
# 0636-050 Bosch on-off switch, green, red or yellow
These universal switches with classic design are more than suitable for our classic VW to install that extra interior light, fog lamp, window heater… you can fill it in…
The switch has 3 connections. 1 normal open contact up to 4 Amps, 12V, with indication lamp, 3 replaceable lenses. 12,5 mm hole required for installation till 6 mm thickness.
Blade terminals and screw terminals connection.
# 0890-790 Holder for spare wheel Type 2 single cab
We’ve already seen to many single cab’s which have their spare wheel just lying around in the treasure box and absorbing that little space you have to put away those crates of beer. Nevertheless, VW had a very suitable solution to put away that extra wheel without losing space but in most cases the bar to hold that extra wheel on its position has got lost. From now on BBT can supply the correct bar, support and wing nut to secure that spare wheel.
Highlights; Did you know BBT has a wide range of grease nipples to replace those rusty or blocked suspension grease nipples?
These are available as;
# 1396-1 Grease nipple M8x1 for front end
# 1396-101 Grease nipple M10x1
# 1396-102 Grease nipple M10x1 angle from 45°
# 1396-103 Grease nipple M10x1 angle from van 90°