My visit to Darrell Vittone, a monument in our VW history!

Darrell Vittone, son of Joe Vittone, founder of Empi. We learned to know each other a couple of years ago and stay in contact ever since.

Darrell used to own his own shop (the Race shop) after sold to Filter Dynamics. Found out that it was real hard to make money in a race shop he relocated to Sheridan Oregon, where he dedicated most of his time in making special and tuning parts for water-cooled VW’s… a whole other thing then he ever did…

In the show room there is things from the past… like these cool license plate frames…

and a schwimmwagen… I guided Darrell when he acquired this one…

The original supercharged engine from 1966, once he tried to sell this for 500USD at a Bug In, no takers…. what would this be worth today?????

The warehouse and shop are very extreme well organised, Darrell retired a couple of years ago and his “like a son” Collin took over, as dedicated as Darrell himself always led this company!

Darrell current race car, a 1966 Ghia was acquired last year… this is the car he try to beat land records in the 36hp class (that’s 30DIN HP for us Europeans) … what he does big time, two weeks ago he eneterd this car in Palmdale, where he raised the track record  from a  mere 104 to a big 141Mph in his class!

nice huh?

Darrell and yours truly before the car Darrell has “on loan” from famous Scottish collector Russell Ritchie.

This was a highlight of my trip for sure! Thanks for lunch Darrell, this was super cool!

Darrell will be visit BBT HQ on our next open house, bookmark your calendar and talk to this Vintage VW heroe in person on BBT’s open house! June 18….

Ok heading south, in two more days I fly home and still have a couple of things to do and many miles to cover!