Emerson Fittipaldi?s Double-Engine VW Beetle

By Leo Nishihata, Jalopnik Brazil

In 1969 Emerson Fittipaldi was already racing in Europe, but he often returned to Brazil during the off-season to avoid the cold northern hemisphere winter. His older brother, Wilson, stayed in Brazil managing the Fittipaldi team and other family businesses, which included building tuning kits, racing steering wheels and Formula Vee cars.

The Thousand Miles of Guanabara, an important endurance race, was slated for that November. But just months before the race Fittipaldi did not have a car strong enough to compete. It promised to be a tough field filled with strong cars like the Ford GT40, Lola T70, Alfa Romeo T33s and prototypes featuring high horsepower, big wings and streamlined designs.

In other words, all of the characteristics you?d expect of a race car and not at all what you?d expect from a Volkswagen Beetle.

Which is exactly what Fittipaldi decided to build.

Got engine? This one's got two.

The Beetle and all of its parts were widely available in Brazil, which prompted the decision. The team included the Fittipaldi brothers, tuners Nelson Brizzi, Ari Leber and Richard Divilla (who later worked for Ligier and NISMO).

The biggest and most obvious obstacle to racing a Beetle was figuring out how to extract more power from the tiny 1,300cc 46-horsepower boxer engine. Tuning kits were available to bore the engine to 1,600cc, and installing a new camshaft, manifolds and carburetors increased power to a miraculous 130 hp. Still, that wasn?t nearly enough to go head-to-head with purpose-built race cars. To solve this problem the team came up with a novel idea: Install two engines.

Equipped with two small engines producing a total of 260 horsepower, the 1,100 pound Volkswagen Beetle could match the power-to-weight ratio of the larger cars.

The team devised a plan to join the two boxer engines using an elastomeric gasket with the crankshafts connected, resulting in a 3.2 liter mid-mounted eight-cylinder engine. Eight exhaust pipes converged in a single outlet above a five-speed gearbox from a Porsche 550 Spyder. The Porsche also provided the drum brakes, steering column and front suspension.

As you might imagine, there was little left of the original Beetle by the time the car was ready to race. The back half was transformed into a tubular structure mounted to the remains of the original chassis. Only a firewall separated the driver from the deafening racket just behind his head. Imagine the clattering roar of a highly-tuned air-cooled VW engine multiplied by two.

The rear suspension was a Formula Vee semi-swing axle with coil springs. Wilson Fittipaldi explained that the car had ?tremendous torque? and was built to go sideways through the corners, because ?that was the only way to set a good lap time with that car.?

The most difficult part was of the project was figuring how to keep that monster of an engine cool. Wilson and Divilla eventually created rooftop ducts that fed air into four pipes leading to the engines. The kludge was covered by a thin, and light, fiberglass body.

The Fittipaldi Bug, kicking ass and taking names.

According to car culture site Obvio!, Okrasa kits were eventually imported by the team and used to bore the displacement of each engine to 2.2 liters, for a total of 4.4 liters. With new camshafts, a new crank and Weber carbs, the beast was good for nearly 400 horsepower. Although Beetles with monstrous power are common in Brazil, they?re typically used in drag racing where they need only go in a straight line. This Beetle needed to go fast while capturing GT40s and Lolas in turns.

It took less than two months to prep the car for testing at Interlagos. During the practice for the Thousand Kilometers of Guanabara at the former Jacarepagua track, Emerson Fittipaldi nailed the third-fastest lap time. He and FrankenBeetle were behind only Carlos Pace in an Alfa Romeo T33 and the Ford GT40 driven by Sidney Cardoso.

During the race, to everyone?s amazement, the atomic Beetle that looked more like a racing helmet than a racing car held third place for the first hour. It raced until the gearbox (or the gasket, depending on the source) went south and Fittipaldi had to drop out of the race. But it was one hell of a project and perhaps the single greatest concentration of talent to ever focus on a Beetle. Sadly, the car was later sold, partly dismantled and lost to history. But what a story!

Photos: Quatro Rodas Cl?ssicos and Obvio!

Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/05/emerson-fittipaldis-double-engine-vw-beetle/

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