10 minute read
Sport for all
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
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
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n the aftermath of World War II, a surplus of military Jeeps o ered 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 o -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 o ered by the rear-engined Volkswagen platform to be recognised. e 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 oorpan, 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. e 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 otation tyres, a VW-based buggy could 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 o road 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. ompson, with his ‘Burro’ Buggy in 1960, was one of the rst, 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 rst venture was to develop a tool to replace the valve guides, enabling them to be rebuilt. e tool was popular, and the business ourished. 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
e location of the company in California meant Vittone was exposed to the growing o -road movement too, and the development of VW-based buggies didn’t go unnoticed. When in 1956 a friend, Les Prestwood, asked Vittone for help in turning the crashed Beetle he had in his yard into a useable car again, the Sportster idea was born. Crash course
e pair concluded the easiest way to repair the front and rear accident damage was simply to cut o the bent metal. Fitted with wider wheels and bigger tyres, along with a souped-up, EMPI-equipped engine, the pair had a rugged, o -road vehicle that could take on the trails with ease.
Some re nement of the concept saw a rather angular looking buggy that, by the time it became a production version, was named the EMPI Sportster.
Built on the stock-length oorpan of a VW Beetle, the simple body was constructed from sheet steel, and was a de nite case of function over form.
Two different versions were available. The four seater used a stock floorpan, while the better proportioned two-seater pick-up required the 'pan be shortened, which made building one more complicated
Period cutaway drawings show the VW basis of the concept, which used all stock Beetle running gear
Do it yourself
The cheapest way into Sportster ownership was to buy a set of plans for just $9.95 and build one yourself. The plans were very detailed, showing exactly where and how to shorten the floorpan the 12 inches required for the two-seater version.
For the bodywork, dimensions, fold angles and recommended material thicknesses were all included, even down to the size of the holes required in the front bulkhead for the wiring, speedo cable, steering column and dimmer switch. Those shown here are dated 1963, and note 'US patent rights pending or applied for.'
e largely at steel panels were cheap and easy to manufacture by the company, or equally by a customer, without the need for specialist tools or skills. You could buy a set of plans for $9.95, or the basic Sportster kit for $895, by that time in either a two-seat version with a small pick-up bed for a shortened VW ’pan, or a four-seat family version for a stock-length chassis.
Deluxe kits were also available with lights, a wiring loom and other additional parts.
Donor car
Mod cons
Choose the four seater and the only modi cations required were to the neck of the recommended VW Transporter fuel tank.
Building a short-wheelbase version was a bit more involved, with the ’pan, cables, conduits and gearshift rod all needed reducing in length, as well as the seat frames.
With a written-o Beetle available from a breaker’s yard for a couple of hundred dollars, though, the whole caboodle could be put together very economically. e basic kit had no top, no side windows and little in the way of protection, but the plans included dimensions for a simple roll hoop and side bars. e front windscreen was typically Jeep-like, folding at onto the spare wheel mounted to the bonnet. e utilitarian nature of the concept left the Sportster owner plenty of room to tailor the vehicle to their requirements, be it colour, trim or additional details.
e removable pick-up bed option o ered a useful space for camping gear, or shopping for those who preferred to use their Sportster around town. e build manual that accompanied the kit certainly made the whole construction process sound easy, advising that the only tools required were “regular mechanic’s hand tools, plus welding equipment (arc or acetylene), and a spray-painting out t.” From the donor Beetle, the customer needed “A good engine, transmission, chassis, wheels, steering, seats… and a few other parts like the VW speedometer and switches, indicators and rear lights, etc.” For the four-seater model, which didn’t require any oorpan modi cations, EMPI claimed “two men “a definite can do it easily in a day.” Besides selling kits, case of EMPI also sold turnkey Sportsters, and even built a huge vat to chemically function clean oorpans prior to building up. Shortened over form” chassis were additionally strengthened with box section side members. Such was the level of activity, the company was granted state of California licence plates for its factorybuilt cars, recognising it as an independent automobile manufacturer. EMPI was one of the rst companies to realise the bene t of catalogues, advertising and promotional material,
With much of the car's minimal weight over the rear axle, the VW design lent itself well to this kind of off-road activity
This shot from the Motor Trend feature shows all the parts you needed to supply to build your own Sportster. It noted the Corvair flat-six engine was an option, too
Original Sportsters do occasionally turn up on eBay and the like, and those built by EMPI are considered the most valuable. Alternatively, you can build your own, as The Paintbox here in the UK did with this funky four-seater version with frilly lid years ago
Ah, the good old days. No roll bar, no seat belts, no crash hat (and no teeth when an errant stone was thrown up and hit you in the face!)
and built up a sophisticated marketing campaign and a nationwide network of dealers stocking and promoting its products ever-expanding range of products. e annually updated EMPI catalogues listed a wide range of accessories for the Sportster kit, such as ‘Hi otation’ tyres, wide wheels and headlights, alongside its growing range of performance engine tuning parts and accessories for regular VWs.
It wasn’t just VWs the company concentrated on either. Noting the use of six-cylinder, air-cooled Chevrolet Corvair engines in some of the earliest dune buggies, Vittone’s own Sportster demonstrator used Corvair power, giving it exhilarating o -road performance.
Enter the Imp
Despite early enthusiasm for it, the all-metal EMPI Sportster was pushed into the shade by the development of lightweight glass bre bodies, which could be bought in bright gelcoat nishes that didn’t require welding and painting and so built up even quicker. EMPI’s Imp from 1969 was one of the true challengers to the dominance of Bruce Meyer’s Manx, though it wasn’t quite as pretty and never sold – or indeed was copied – in equal numbers.
Ever the clever marketeer, Vittone licensed the Imp for production in Europe too, originally by Autohaus Süd-Hannover, and later Karmann.
Today, original Sportsters (and Imps for that matter) are a reasonably rare nd, especially those with provenance that can prove they were manufactured by EMPI (do some Googling and you'll also nd reference to versions built by Land Sea Air Inc. in Riverside, which some say was another company set up by Joe Vittone to manufacture buggies).
As was the case in the 1960s, few would choose to build a quirky, steel Sportster over a glass bre buggy today, but they remain an important part of VW history nonetheless. ■
The buggy boom of the 1960s led to a raft of glass fibre body manufacturers appearing around the world. Vittone wanted a bit of that action too, so launched the short wheelbase Imp in 1969. It was a high quality kit, with a firm emphasis on street legality
