A VERY BRIEF INCH PINCHER HISTORY LESSON

Therehave been only three Inch Pincher drag cars, but body variations in those through the years muddy the picture a bit. The first was a ’56 Oval Darrell Vittone (son of EMPI founder Joe Vittone) once used as a daily driver. Dan Gurney road-raced it in the Bahamas (with Dean Lowry overseeing) in both ’63 and ’64. The Oval’s rear window was eventually taken out in favor of a bigger early-’60s window, and the roof was covered with vinyl in a multi-colored flower motif to go along with the orange ‘n’ flame paint scheme.

By 1971, Darrell had built EMPI’s next racecar using the pan from the original Inch Pincher and a chopped ’59 body with a Plexiglas moonroof. It was raced once at the ’71 Winternationals in an all-white paint job with Inch Pincher, Too! lettered on the doors. When it showed up at the next race it was covered with the nowfamous multi-panel, multi-colored paint job done by Rollin “Molly” Sanders. It was also an EMPI-owned vehicle and, when EMPI was sold to Filter Dynamics in 1971, the car went with the sale.

Darrell continued to race the car for the 1971–72 season (winning the Eliminator class at the ’72 Winternationals), but soon left EMPI to start his own business named Race Shop. After 1972, Filter Dynamics promoted their products using the Inch Pincher Too! at various racing events with different drivers, but it never achieved the stature it had when Darrell raced it. The car was sold to different drivers over the next few years and it apparently has been lost to time.

by New York-based Richard Guarino, who ran Competition Car Parts — and an EMPI dealer. The Inch Pincher III is currently in Japan and owned by FLAT4. As for the first two Inch Pinchers, folks “in the know” about such things mostly agree the first and second Inch Pincher bodies no longer exist.

II. The 1995cc motor (82 x 88) is set up with a 9:1 compression.

The Inch Pincher III, a copper-colored ’52 Splitwindow, was driven on the East Coast

In the early ’90s, to help highlight the debut of their new BRM-type wheel, FLAT4 built a clone of Inch Pincher, Too!, which you see here. It’s pretty faithful to the original, though some of the original race stickers have been changed to FLAT4 stickers.