The Fahrvergnugenwagen!

Kept up with the latest by joining Team.Net, and the Italian-Cars mailing lists. I instructed with the Chicago Region SCCA Solo II drivers school for five years, administrated the BFGoodrich contingency award program for Tri-State Sports Car Council for three years. Most of the racing was in large parking lots, but I guess my home track was BlackHawk Farms Raceway near Rockford IL. We autocrossers like to drive fast and swerve!

As you may suspect, I do get questions about my car, and here is a reply that I have put together and sent to several other folks. Hope it answers your questions.

P.S. Venus D'Milage has over 325k on her!

Here is what Venus looks like in action!

I would not recommend that it be used for racing purposes, because of the inherent design of the car. It's center of gravity is located to high and too far to the rear of the car. That nifty picture was taken on a racecourse where I nearly flipped the car after tiptoeing around a corner onthe right front wheel. I wish I had a video available on the web, you could see it actually going thru a corner on one wheel. If I had pushed it any harder, I would have flipped her, thank goodness for the sticky shoes.I would opt for a two door sedan or hatchback before I would race the wagon again.

When I raced it, I used a brand new air filter, and EXTREMELY sticky autox compound tires from BFGoodrich which helped make it cling to the pavement. I also increased my front wheel camber angle to make it step into the corners.

The only other thing I did was to change the 'doughnut' in the exhaust between the manifold and the cat. The original is a steel one, and it restricts the flow down about a half inch. I replaced it with a standard auto supply one and it did improve the breathing on her.

Presently, I have some GTI wheels on mine, but that is about it. I did replace the motor around 220,000, along with the trans, since the trans was starting to sound like a taxicab, and the motor blew a headgasket so badly that I had to pull the sparkplugs to blow the liquid out of the cylinders in order to drive it onto the trailer.

I have heard that it is easy to adapt a set of front disc brakes to the rear and give yourself 4 wheel disc's but I have no idea what you would use for emergency brakes.

If you can find a copy of "European Car" magazine from November of 1992 there was an article about tricking out a Fahrvergnugenwagen. There was a reference to VW Specialties, and they are located at 17682 Gotherd, Huntington Beach, CA 92647 714-848-3706.