Vintage Volkswagen Club of America

Owner:  Matthew Kenny,  Paso Robles, CA  Feature Car Winter 2012

The Challenge:  Find out how fast your 36hp Volkswagen can go at the mecca for all land speed racers, the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah. Drive your bug from a standing start and accelerate at full throttle over a full mile until it’s ultimate top speed is reached in a precision 132 ft. Speed Trap, and do it with the same street legal bug you drive every day.   http://saltflats.com/36_HP.html  http://burlyb.com

The following are some exerpts from Matthews entries in our forum documenting his trip to Bonneville 2011 in his very cool   Bus.

This was my first time out, and it was a real kick in the ass! I built a 57 panel bus with a stroker 36hp (1560cc) an wound up with a 68.3 mph top speed with a stock height RGB transmission bus. My record was bested by a single cab truck at 68.88mph that had a WW Okrasa kitted engine on a lowered chassis with no RGB boxes. It was very much fun and a good learning experience which was my main reason to go. The 36hp challenge is a very low dollar entry level class to run at Bonneville. It does not matter how fast you go down the salt, it still gives you the same adrenalin rush. Check out the bus on my site, I'll be adding another page to it in a couple days with some salt shots.  www.aircooledresearch.com/docs/articleno6.html

"I want to know the process of getting the bus in the back of the truck .... Ramps and winch system ???" Ramps, back it in. The road into the salt park is raised about three feet from the parking/camp area so your just back the truck up to the road and put out the ramps. Once everything is lined up, just back in and strap down. Same routine at the King's. The door of the bus opens just enough above the top of the truck bed to get out. The toy hauler had two motor cycles and a Manx buggy in the back. We went 60-65mph the whole way.

Roof Rack and Speed??

Biggest reason the roof rack was still on is that it is "growing " into the roof skin. It'll be a little bit of work to clean it off. I did have four caps, I had the back one off to air up the tire before my last two runs. The whole idea behind this trip was just to go and run, but with a totally unusual vehicle. I also wanted to prove the engine configuration that pushed the bus down the track (very simple no frills stroker anyone can build). My half mile speed was 63mph which I thought was very good from a standing start in a RGB bus. Now that I know the logistics on getting to Bonneville and what to expect when you get there,
I hope more of the Central coast crowd tries it. 

72mm stroke 912 crank, 83mm 40hp big bore pistons/cyls, stock heads (ported polished) and one of my special grind cams. It's a real grunt engine.

Congratulations to Matthew for having a great run at Bonneville and making us here on the Central Coast proud!

Now we need to get a few more racers out there next year!!  James???