1960 Volkswagen Scorpio race car, Formula Vee, SCCA , Sports Racer, street legal

1960 Volkswagen Other Description

This car hails from a time in sports car racing when men who wanted to go faster simply used their skills and gumption to fabricate their own cars. Sure, there were always plenty of production car racing but the modifieds and homebuilts such as Ol Yaller, the Baldwin Special, and others created the most excitement.....could they beat the factory racing teams who had almost unlimited resources? These local heroes toiled in relative obscurity for their chance to show off their cars at the local race track. This car was built by such as man. Beau Hickory...wild West showman, world class blacksmith, founder of the California Buggy Association, and race car builder and driver. His shop Sports Race Car Lab was in south San Francisco. During the swinging sixties in San Francisco, his bread and butter was blacksmith work on the mansions in San Francisco but he also had a shop where he repaired and built sports and race cars. This car, called the Scorpio, was built in the early/mid sixties as Formula Vee was just being introduced. He had a car business called Zodiac Motors and he wanted to build a car for every sign. He did build others including the Virgo and Taurus. A search of his name online will yield even more information and details.
The idea behind this car was one that could be a dual purpose race car and also a street car. With a stock VW drivetrain, this car was raced by Beau at the Cotati racetrack and others. He made his car wide enough to qualify as a 2 seater so that with the addition of fenders, lights, etc he could race in the F-Mod category. This would have put him in an elite category with the Porsche 550 (which was put in this class at the time by the SCCA) and also the Lotus 23. This would have required an upgrade of the drivetrain and brakes, of course. Beau told me that he built and sold several Scorpio's to others to race in SCCA Formula Vee. He kept this Scorpio for the next 4 plus decades and I bought it from him 6 years ago.
This car is built very light with square tubing and a stressed belly pan for strength (made by heating the aluminum sheet before riveting and welding...once it cooled, it shrunk tight for strength and rigidity) I decided that I wanted to build the car as it would have been raced in F-Mod. I took out the early split case transmission (which I still have and is included with this sale) and installed a later transmission and a high performance 1776cc engine with dual Webers, high performance cam, and oversized valves. This engine has at least double the original horsepower. If I were to race the car then I would use either disc brakes or early Porsche 356 drums. A fuse box was installed in this car and I have lights and a windshield and wiper motor but I never wired them up. This car is a running and driving car but I never drove it on the open road. It would need minor sorting to make this a street legal car although it does come with a clear open Florida title and vin plate attached to this car that came from a 1960 Volkswagen that donated some of its parts to this car.
This is your chance to get a genuine vintage race car with some real history behind it for a very affordable price. I'm including both the Porsche 356 wheels and the early 13" Volkswagen race wheels. This car was fitted with a fuel cell but I have the original fiberglass gas tank in good condition if you would like to use that, perhaps with the addition of a fuel bladder. I'm sure if you're interested in this car then you would have additional questions. Please don't hesitate to reach out via ebay and I will make sure to return your inquiries. I have a link to lots of pictures showing this car with and without fenders, roof, both sets of wheels, etc. I also have some pictures of Beau Hickory with this car at the Cotati race track and also at the Oakland Roadster show and also pictures of some of Beau's other race cars that he built...
Please click at this link for more photos
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