In March of 2006 I located and acquired a nice Sea Blue 1964 Type 143 Karmann Ghia. This four-owner Karmann Ghia had 154,200 miles on it when I picked it up. It had a well documented history from the date of purchase until the day I bought it. It was originally purchased in Florida and made its way to Georgia before arriving in Mansfield, Ohio around 1998. The documentation that came with the car is amazing. I have the original window sticker, sales purchase order, sales invoice and the salesman's business card. I also obtained a stack of receipts showing every bit of work that had been done to the little car over its history leading up to my assuming ownership.
CB2296 Camshaft with Magnum Steel on Steel straight cut gears
Udo Becker light weight racing lifters
Manton Pushrods
Gene Berg 30mm Oil Pump, full flow
6" O-berg "tattle-tail" Oil Filter
Jeff Denham Welded Race Heads, K-Motion Springs, 46x37.5 valves
Targeting 12.5 to 1 Compression
Jaycee Modified 51.5mm IDA Weber Carbs
CB Performance cross-bar IDA linkage or Berg Fanshroud Linkage
Ceramic Coated 1 7/8" Merged Header by Kymco Motorsports
Custom 2 1/2" Flowmaster muffer (by owner)
MSD Billet Distributor, 6AL and Blaster Coil or Hunt Magneto
Gene Berg 4qt Racing Oil Sump
This page was last updated on: October 18, 2009
During first few months I did a fair amount of work to the car to get it "track" ready. I was careful in that all of the modifications can be easily reversed. I went about the transformation with the long-term plan of someday doing a complete restoration of the car back to its original state; complete with its original 40hp engine, trans, etc. For now my interests are going fast.
In August 2006, with the car very "new" and in the middle of its transition from stock to street/strip, we loaded up and attended the CB Performance Pro Stock Nationals at the famous O'Rielly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Here's a few shots taken at the event:
Here's the original window sticker. Price? How about $2,347.04 including $35 for the white wall tires! The car was trucked to its dealership at a cost of $17. Engine number is 8549644, which matches the 40hp stock engine that came with the car. I plan to rebuild this engine and one day reinstall it where it belongs.
Here's the original sales invoice showing the dealer-added options of undercoat ($19.95), New car service ($29.50), Radio ($62.50), Outside Mirror ($7.95) and 2 Seat Belts ($19.90). Final price, $2,514.58. Note the buyer traded in a 1962 Oldsmobile 2-dr.
This shot shows our pit location soon after we unloaded from the trip from Wisconsin. The famous 1/2 Mile oval is immediately behind our trailer.
It was hot and humid and we had a little shower to cool things off a little bit.
The car with its [then] new 2054cc engine was very "fresh". Basically, the car had about 3 miles on it when we loaded it up for the trip! And now I was going to be "shaking it down" by making some 1/4 mile passes in it without any prior testing.
Here are a few updated pictures of the car as it looks today (June '09). In these shots the car is wearing its new "shoes" in the rear (Falken 195/65/15 radials):
"Street" Engine Specs
The engine that is currently powering the Ghia was built from a combination of parts that I had laying around the garage. I came up with this combo when my original plan to build a 2332cc race engine fizzled out due to some of the critical parts not making it back to me in time for Indy. So I looked around the garage and determined that I had enough parts to build a stout little 74x94 street engine. And frankly, I'm really glad I built this engine. Its been a blast to drive and it runs incredibly well on the street.
2054 cc's
74mm Tony Mance Crankshaft
wedgemated to a 12.5 lbs flywheel
5.400" Scat "I" Beam Connecting Rods
94mm Mahle Pistons & Cylinders
Engle FK10 Camshaft
CB Performance Lightweight Lifters
Manton Pushrods
CE Steel Straight Cut Gears
HD 26mm Oil Pump, full flow
6" O-berg "tattle-tail" Oil Filter
Original Lonnie Reed "Wedgeport"
race heads prepped by Jeff Denham
42 x 37.5 valves, dual springs
10.92 to 1 compression ratio
Weber 48 IDA Carbs (Italian)
42mm venturis
Gene Berg 1 3/4" Merged Header,
Ceramic Coated
Custom 2 1/2" Flowmaster muffer
MSD Billet Distributor, 6AL and
Blaster Coil
Gene Berg 4qt Racing Oil Sump
Custom 40hp shroud modified for "dog
house" oil cooler.
The Hard Work Pays Off!
On Saturday, August 19, 2006 I made my first set of passes in the "new" car down the famous dragstrip. Without the benefit of racing slicks, I tried to finesse my way to some decent passes running the old 165 radials that came with the car. Here's a shot of me as I'm leaving on the last amber.
Over the 2009 winter I plan to dust off all my "go fast" parts and complete the build up of the Ghia's race engine. The engine will displace 2332cc's and should produce over 220hp. I intend to keep the 2054 street engine handy, and will use the bigger "street/strip" engine for fun at the track. It will definitely see some street use, but it will be limited. The goal is to put my Ghia into the 11's. I will post more pictures as progress is made.
The following pictures show some of the incredible documentation that was included in the purchase of this car. I was thrilled to be able to obtain all of its history like this.
Here's the original supplemental price sheet with the options priced out. Total price "out the door" was $2,486.84 back on May 21, 1964.
Here we are in the staging lanes at IRP. Club members Troy Palmer and Richard Roth hanging out with me. Club member Mike Fritz's and his '65 Bug is seen behind my Ghia. Photo taken by club founder/member Dave Conklin.
I had an opportunity to race the Ghia at a brand new event in Wisconsin. The race was held at the Wisconsin International Raceway (WIR). The event was named "Dubs in the Valley" and was put on by a Madison-based VW club. The weather was great for racing and we had fun! In the end I won 2nd place, or runner up in the Top Eliminator Class. Here's a couple of shots of the racing action:
Ercos baby!
Current power for the Ghia comes from this 2054cc engine. Specs are revealed below.
In this photo you will see the custom gas struts I installed to hold the deck lid open. I followed instructions from Mike Lawless, who graciously sent them to me upon asking. Cool guy! A simple install, really. I had to fabricate some custom aluminum mounts and simply measure for the correct gas struts.
Here's the final round. Yep, I had to give chase to a 23-second super beetle. I broke out trying to catch him, but still went home $75 richer!
By the end of the day I had run my quickest time in the car. I made one pass with the fan belt removed, and unfortunately Ieft the line-lock on too long producing a slow 1.868 sixty foot time. I wound up running at 13.055 at 103.021 mph. This should have been an easy 12-second time slip. Oh well, there's always next time....
2007 Car Shows
One thing I really enjoy doing up here in Wisconsin is taking the VW's out to local car shows. Its always fun to see people's reactions to the VW's as they just aren't very common up here. The questions and comments people make are fun to listen to, and its great to meet people who share a passion of cars like me.
The following shots were taken at car shows in June and August 2007.
The above shot was taken at the NWVWC car show in Appleton, WI by a member of the NWVWC. Yep, that's me walking back to the car and that's Curtis (then 11 yrs old) at the passenger door. I won 1st place in the Ghia class.
These shots are from a local classic car show. I placed 2nd in the Foreign/Special Interest category.
The Beginning...
I thought I'd re-post a couple of shots of what the car looked like when I brought it home and how it has evolved.
These shots were taken the morning of March 20, 2006.
It doesn't get much "stocker" than this!
The next couple of photos were taken in May of 2006 following the restoration of the stock rims and the addition of some 145 radials for the front. If you look carefully you may be able to see that I had mounted the tach.
Induction:
Induction will come from my original Italian 48IDA's that I've owned since new in 1982. I had them modified by JayCee Enterprises to increase flow. They now measure 51.5mm. These modified IDA carbs feature all the tricks including profiled shafts, new butterflies and will run 46mm venturies.
Cylinder Heads:
I've owned these castings since 1982 and they've been on every serious "go-fast" engine I've built. They've been rebuilt several times and still work great! This last go-around I sent them back to Jeff Denham for him to "improve" them some more. He freshened them up and added some K-Motion 800 springs and racing retainers. They've been flycut some more to help me target a compression ratio between 12.5 and 13.0 to 1.
The shot to the right shows the combustion chambers with their 46 x 37.5 valves. As Jeff say's, "these things are for huffin and puffin!"
Rocker Arms
For this incarnation of my 2332cc engine I've decided to replace my Autocraft 1.4 rockers with what many consider to be the best on the market - the CB Performance 1.4 ratio rockers.
These new rockers will hold up better pushing the K-Motion valve springs than the Autocraft needle bearing rockers.
The Autocraft rockers are now pushing the valves on the Ghia's 2054cc street engine.
Thanks for checking out my "Ghia" page.
In 2007 I purchased a set of Erco .190 rims for the Ghia.
The fronts are the popular "zero off-set" 3.5" rims. The rears are a special 5 1/4" wide rim with a 3 1/4" rear offset. These allow me to stuff a pair of original Firestone 6W (7" wide) slicks under the rear fenders.
I have two pairs of rear rims. One pair run the slicks and second pair are for radial tires.
At this show I met a local famous "car guy" who hosts a local cable TV car show program called "Wheels." I tried to convince him a story on the fabled VW might be a good idea. He took my name and number, but I haven't heard from him (yet).
This winning pass got me to the final and into the "money round!"
From 2006....
In the fall of '06 I attended Appleton Wisconsin's "License to Cruise" car show in old downtorn Appleton.
I joined up with fellow NWVWC members and we parked our VW's down Wisconsin Avenue.
It was a cold, rainy night, but we had a good time attracting a fair amount of attention from our old VW's.
Here's a close up of the intake ports. These heads began as large oval ports with 44mm intakes, but they've been improved over time. When Jeff added the 46mm intakes he massaged the ports some more. They work exceptionally well and were enough to push my old Bug's 2332 to an 11.811 second time slip.
.gif){kind=small}
