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Bill Beattie's 1947 in 1961
The picture below is from the "Ulster Motorist" dated Nov 1961
.
It
shows the 1947 VW Bill bought for £10 (not £12.10 as stated) and in which
he won the premier event of the season at Kirkistown, Northern Ireland (
the Baird Memorial Trophy). It was a handicap event of course so his
trumpet is well muted.
The car
was left hand drive and he converted it to right hand by fitting right hand
pedals bought from a scrap yard and simply moving the steering wheel to the
other side. It had cable brakes and a crash gear-box.. The shockers were an odd
size and useless so he did without and the rear wheels were turned inside-out
which widened the track and lowered the back-end.
The
engine, which he built from spare parts, was fitted with OKRASA twin port
heads which he had obtained 2nd-hand (the original owner found that they were
prone to break cranks) he also fitted a Porsche crank and flywheel giving an
extra 10mm throw, this was accomplished by machining the VW rods to fit the
crank, grinding the big-ends to VW size and fitting spacers below the
cylinders. He fitted an out-side oil cooler, made from the coils of a
commercial air heater and mounted across the inlet grills above the
engine door, and to take care of oil surge, he installed an oil tank below the
sump attached at the oil filter and extended the oil inlet pipe.
The
engine certainly went and when fitted to his ordinary beetle, he had endless fun
blowing off Mini Coopers etc.
He also
had a few class wins in hillclimbs and sprints before selling the "racer"
to a well known rally driver who used the engine for many thousands of
hard miles.
Winning the class (saloon cars up to 1600cc) at Knockagh Hill Climb on 7th Oct 1961.