We like tractors

John Deere or Lanz Bulldog..

Or was that Denzel

Veterama

We didn't really go part hunting, more to collect our seats and some socialising, but we did find a few things.

Couple of PreA cams, super 90 cam, some Marchal fog light bulbs and a set of 30hp 1st over (case) main bearings

One of our Favourites

'Der Thundersodder Spezialer' is one of our favorite race cars and belongs to one of our Norwegian Screwdriver friends.

Based on a Nov '52 Zwitter

Built in Norway in 1964 for rally and hillclimb racing. It was raced until 1974, when it broke the crankshaft in two and was put in a barn.

The drivers seat is made of bakelite and comes from a 1951 vampire fighter jet. Porsche 356B brakes all round, Lemmertz 356 15x4.5 wheels, Porsche PreA gearbox, fully syncronized.

The car originally used a 1500 motor with a TDE dual carb kit, but the engine was missing when the car was found in 1997. It was very rusty, crashed front and rear and has been 'repaired' NOT restored. The complete interior/dash is untouched as built in 1964.

The present motor was built turn key by Sauer & Sohn Germany in 1967 and delivered to the customer in Denmark, who raced a '56 Oval in dirt track racing. He went on to win the Danish championship with this motor in 1970 and 1971.

It has S&S hemi-pistons, S&S heads and intakes manifolds, dual Solex 40's, SPG roller bearing crank, insane S&S cam and a dry sump system.

The original blue print says 127hp, not bad for a 1600 motor!

The motor was found in the basement of the original owner, in Denmark, the flywheel had been torn from the crank and was in need to a total rebuild.

So it was rebuilt and put in the Norwegian car, nice combo? You betya :-)

Oldspeed lounge

Well it's been a long few days with more than 10 hours of driving.

We went to Veterama Mannheim not only for parts hunting but also to collect our seats, for some of the projects we are working on.

After waiting for a couple of months for our seats to be made, they are finally ready. Yipee......

Taking a good look at our new seats we couldn't decide what to do, should we use them in our projects or better still maybe for the new seating in our Oldspeed lounge....

Just like Buses

When ever you want one there are never any around, and then when you're not looking two at once appear.

We had to go to the local rubbish dump on saturday and saw a guy throwing away some oval rear lights.

Hey there, do you have anymore VW parts, we asked?

They came from my fathers garage,there's just a load of old Opel parts in there.

May we come and look, we asked.

Yeah sure

So we went around tonight and after sorting through all the boxes we couldn't believe what we found, two Okrasa oil temperature gauges.

We gave little money and left with our Opel gauges and big smiles.

I guess sometimes dreams do come true

Were Back!

We've been working on one of our Top Secret projects here for a little while, so there's been no activity on our blog.

But after many hours in the workshop we have made a break through, so only a small amount of work remains before we will reveal all.

Then we can begin with our favourite pastime of R&D :-)

'54 sunroof welding pt5

Welding and fabrication continues..........

Period Photo's

Carrying on with the 356SL and Le Mans here is a couple of period photo's.

The 356SL can be seen in action at the 1951 24Hours Le Mans.

In the second photo, Ferry Porsche in the Porsche pits with two 550A's before the start of 1956 24 Hours Le Mans.

Original Oldspeed Racer

The 356SL or 'Sport Leicht' is the original Oldspeed race car.

Porsche produced only 7 of these super light race cars, based on the aluminum Bodied Gmünd cars. They used a heavily modified VW motor and the displacement was lowered to 1086cc (73.5 bore x 64 stroke) so they were eligible for the popular and highly competitive 1.1 litre racing class. Equipped with high compression heads and twin Carburetors, the Porsche power-plant produced 40bhp,a full 15 bhp more than the Volkswagen spec.

The first 3 SL cars were built in 1950 when Porsche moved back to the Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen.Two were entered for the 1951 24 Hours Le Mans. However, an accident during one of the practice session decimated the Porsche entry to just one. The other one (pictured above) completed the race 20th overall and more importantly 1st in class in the hands of French drivers Auguste Veuillet and Edmond Mouche. The two drivers repeated that class victory in the next race. It was the start of a love affair between Porsche and the legendary 24 Hours Le Mans.

Oldspeed Motors

Here's a few of our favourite motor's.

1950 PreA, Denzel and Denzel top end kit.

Thanks to P.R & C.G for allowing us open their deck lids and R.C for the photo.

Special Delivery

We had a special delivery today, a set of NOS K&S 82.5mm pitons & cylinders for one of our motor projects.

'54 sunroof welding pt4

The welding at the front is just about finished........

Just couldn't wait

We couldn't wait to try our new lathes screwcutting capabilities, so we machined some new banjo bolts for our carbs.

'Oldspeedwerks' machine shop

We have a new lathe for our Oldspeedwerks machine shop. Although it is 40 years old it is in perfect working order and much better than our old one, it also has screwcutting capabilities.

We can machine our own flywheels and brake drums now :-)

Oldspeed Exhaust pt3

well our Oldspeed sebring prototype exhaust is finished, complete with exhaust wrap for better flow of exhaust gases. Time for some testing before we make some for our Type 1's

Now to make some Abarth Okrasa ones :-)

More case work

Our 25hp case is back from the machine shop, line bored to 1st over and also machined to accept 30hp cylinders.

All the oil galleries have been fully cleaned and re-plugged as original, we have also made some modifications/improvements inside the case :-)

'54 sunroof welding pt3

The welding & fabrication process continues......

A new beginning

We decided it was time to start one of our new motor projects. After looking through our available cases, we decided to use one of our NOS unstamped 25hp aluminium ones.

Even though it's NOS we are sending it to be line bored to make sure it's perfectly straight, better safe than sorry!

Oldspeed Exhaust pt2

We finally found some time to get back on the exhaust project.

Here you can see that the perforated is tacked, the sound deadening is in the back boxes and they have been closed.

In the last photo you can see it is nearly finished, tail pipe and the extensions to the J tubes are all Tig welded in place.

Just need to find some time to fabricate the J tubes and the bends to the exhaust ports.

'54 sunroof welding cont.

The welding at the front continues......

Bjorn's Pro Bus

Our good friend 'The Metal Shaper' has just finished his son Bjorn's pro bus.

This bus is so cool, it has it all, electric motors, space frame, hydraulics, custom made steering wheel, polished inner arches and he even hammered out a speedster seat.

Our personal favourite is the custom made graphics.

Now we all want one too......

Not exactly Flat 4

yeah we know it's not a 2 piece case or even a flat 4, it is in fact an aircooled flat 12. The car in question is the Porsche 917, although this is the race car that nearly bankrupt Porsche it is also the most famous and one of our favourites. This car still holds the average speed record at Le Mans, not bad since that was 38 years ago.

Here you see the video we shot of the rolling start of the 917 group at Le Mans Classic, be sure to turn your volume up.

Oldspeed Exhaust

Looking through the images of some of our favourite Le Mans race cars from The Le Mans Classic, we noticed how cool the cars looked with their 'race exhaust'.

As we are building a couple of Oldspeed motors for our cars we thought we should also have special oldspeed exhaust's.

Taking inspiration from the 550 and 356 SL we decided that a sebring was the way to go.

You see the the fabrication process is well under way, the two rear boxes are nearly finished and the four pipes merging are tacked together. You can also see there are exhaust flanges for 2 piece case VW and Porsche ;-)

To be continued.........

'54 Sunroof Restoration

"The Spanner" has owned his '54 sunroof for more than 25 years, he decided it was about time that he started the Oldspeed Restoration.

Here you see the body has been lifted from the pan, so as to gain access for the necessary welding.

You can see that the welding and fabrication process is well under way on the front apron/spare wheel well.

We will post more pictures of the restoration as work continues, so be sure to check back to see the ongoing work.........