EMPI SPORTSTER The steel-bodied EMPI Sportster was one of the first commercially available buggies. EMPI was even granted a special licence in California so was effectively recognised as a small vehicle manufacturer
Sport for all When Joe Vittone launched EMPI in 1956, one of his early projects was the low-cost Sportster, a VW-based buggy kit you could build at home in a weekend Words and pics: James Hale and Ultra VW archive
n the aftermath of World War II, a surplus of military Jeeps offered the opportunity for many ex-servicemen to buy them cheap and head for the wide-open spaces of America. It became such a popular pastime that, fairly soon, commercial production of dedicated off-road vehicles began in earnest, and four-wheel drive clubs started forming. More resourceful people started building their own buggies at home, utilising domestic chassis and engine combinations, but it didn’t take long for the superior traction offered by the rear-engined Volkswagen platform to be recognised. The Beetle was still a relatively new import to the US at that stage, but once they started showing up in scrap yards and on the second hand market, their popularity soared. One could be stripped of its bodywork in a day, and the resultant floorpan, with its suspension, running gear and even seats all still attached, could be driven as a separate vehicle, with just the addition of a fuel tank and a means of supporting the steering column. The VW design, with its independent, torsion bar suspension and rear-mounted, air-cooled engine, put the weight distribution exactly where it was needed for cruising the soft sand dunes. Fitted with wider-thanstock wheels and flotation tyres, a VW-based buggy could
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travel across terrain that was deemed impassable previously.
Double vision
Modifying the chassis by shortening it made it lighter still and reduced the turning circle, further improving its offroad ability. All that was needed now was someone with the vision to make a body to sit on top and commercialise the concept. Hilder T. Thompson, with his ‘Burro’ Buggy in 1960, was one of the first, but the real prize went to Joe Vittone, a young entrepreneur who ran a VW dealership in California, with the Sportster. Vittone was in the right place at the right time. Seeing the growing interest in the Volkswagen Beetle, he set up a dealership, Economotors, in Riverside, California in the mid-1950s. Frustrated with VW’s attitude that its cylinder heads be considered disposable, his first venture was to develop a tool to replace the valve guides, enabling them to be rebuilt. The tool was popular, and the business flourished. So much so, Vittone created a new business called European Motor Products Inc. (later re-named Engineered Motor Products Incorporated, EMPI for short) to develop a range of performance parts to soup up the air-cooled VW.
Two early Sportsters made the cover of the July '63 issue of Motor Trend, and a later one appeared on the first (Winter '67) edition of Dune Buggies and hot VWs
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