Nobody less as my personal VW Hero Darrell Vittone came to visit BBT after the European Bug In!

For those who don’t know…. Darrells father, Joe Vittone, started the very first aftermarket company for VW parts… in Riverside Ca. Without his vision we can only doubt if there should have been ever a real serious aftermarket for VW parts. This was in 1956! Darrell always worked for his dad off course…

In my office in front my split window radio collection….

The company was named EMPI.  Joe Vittone led this company till 1972, until it was sold to Filter Dynamics.

Darrell continued to work for his father in the VW dealerships he had and also for Filter Dynamics, till 1978 (if I remember right) when he started up his own company under the name “The Race Shop” . Darrell was a real good engine and trans builder, especially for competition cars, but it was hard to make a living from it.

He closed the Race Shop and moved up North, to Oregon, where he opened Techtronics. A company that produced camshafts and extractors for watercooled Volkswagens…

When Filter Dynamics closed the (EMPI) doors because of a bankruptcy all left over intellectual and legal rights been sold to Lyle Cherry, of Dallas Texas… who let all over to me, about three years ago…

And the EMPI company that is active today in USA? They have nothing to see with the original EMPI (except that the owners dad used to be a sales guy for the real EMPI for a certain period) or as Darrell stated, the last good Empi developed product I saw  was in 1972 when my father sold Empi….:)

At the entrance of BBT….

So  we decided to make a road trip and bring Darrell back to his roots, Darrells both grand parents emigrated from Piemonte Italy to the USA… Friend of Da Houze David would drive along for a 2 weeks trip… the 59 westy was loaded up and Davids 58 pick up was all ready…;

But then bad luck happened, only 50 km from home the fuel pump of our westy started to leak and pumped gas in the engine case… it gave me a real rare opportunity to work together with my Hero. not planned and not on schedule but an experience I will never ever forget anymore.

We succeeded to repair the fuel pump, but the engine had too much gas in the oil what washed out the cylinders what caused huge compression leaks, the westy was brought back home and exchanged for the 58 Deluxe…Darrell had a good seat in the back… many kilometers to come…

so and off it went, Darrell on the back seat, was happy and smiling the whole way down…

will be continued…

….soaked by patina, a seen on the OCTO meet

Picture credit by friend of Da House Eric

Hein is a long time friend of Da House, for over 25 years already.

Unfortunately he stepped out of VW’s a couple of years ago. and picked up his old passion, racing bikes… since then he collects racing bikes like no other… he had his own proper feature in Sabato, the weekend magazine with the “TIJD” newspaper… 2 weeks ago.

 Unfortunately Hein is really ill now … with this we hope to give him a little bit more strength to fight his cancer… don’t give up Hein, we’re behind You!