I was doing some family research and one of my aunts started telling me that some of my Uncles where into drag racing and old cars. My Uncles are Norman Hardy, Lloyd Hardy, and Lynwood Hardy. She told me that they ran a garage in Lancaster MA which most of my family resides in and had a lot of cars. One thing that caught my attention was she said that Lloyd and Lynwood "invented" as she put it the Bardahl Bug. Does anyone have anymore info on this by chance. You know how family info gets muddy as it is handed down generation to generation. She also mentioned they had something to do with manufacturing dune buggies. You know how allot of old ladies think that hot rods are dune buggies so it makes me wonder.
The "Bardahl Bug" that I remember seeing at So. Glens Falls dragway was a vw flatnose pickup painted yellow with hemi power made to do wheelstands,perhaps "Bucksnort" will chime in !
I remember my Uncle Vinnie Hardy had a bunch of race cars but I was so young I can't remember that much about them.
Dug out a few from my scrapbook. June 19,1966 at South Glens Falls Dragway. Think Joe Vanni from Eastern Drag News was helping out with promoting,not sure. Miss Bardahl with Lynwood Maybe your family can recognize some folk in this shot.
I will pass the pictures on to my aunt to see if she recognize anyone. Still have no idea what she ment about the dune buggies.
Don't know about dune buggies.They could have been hot rods. Richard Hutchins raced a VW wheelstander,don't know who came first.
That was my thought when she said dune buggies. I am going to meet with them soon and see if I can find out more info or get some pictures from them.
blacktopbutcher; i spent a lot of time as a kid at our local track. Funny you should mention the "bug" (1966).. Here is a post card type picture they used to give to the kids. Enjoy; Rick
Some pics.from testing Bardahl Bug at Worcester Airport,somewhere I have a good magazine article on the bug,will look for it,later, SteveO
During this time in history Bardahl owned of sponsored an Unlimited Hydroplane, Indy race car, Unlimited racing airplane and assorted drag and desert racers along with a few other things. I'm thinking that your uncles went over to Norwood Mass. the East coast headquarters for Bardahl products that's only forty three miles away and got sponsored. If you had something different in that time in history Ollie Bardahl as big a prick as he was might sponsor a guy. It's to bad that the history of your uncles drag car was lost to time. Johnny Sweet Miss Bardahl U-40 1976-1983
So I’m going to bump this even though it’s been 6 years because I have some info here for you. The Bardahl Bug was owned by Joe Vanni who was a Providence RI schoolteacher and loved Chrysler products. He saw the ‘Little Red Wagon’ and liked the idea and came up with the idea to put a Chrysler Hemi in a VW pickup. Joe was afraid to drive it so he had Charlie Holmes aka “Leadfoot” Charlie from Providence RI drive it. Charlie used to roll it over for fun. My grandfather was a friend of Charlie’s and the Bug was worked on frequently at my greatgrandfather’s shop Russo Autobody in Cranston RI. He’s not sure who put it together originally and he suspects it was a shop in MA, which could be your families garage. He’s also not sure what happened to it in the end, but suspects Charlie rolled it over and Joe just decided at that point to junk it. Russo Autobody is still open and my Uncle Bobby (a few years younger than my grandfather) used to go out with them all the time. If you want more information feel free to reach out. Some last bits I found out. After a fight between Joe and Bardahl it was renamed the Hemi Bug. It could run the quarter mile at a top speed of 120mph on the rear wheels. He used to steer it with two levers on the rear brakes by slowing down one wheel or another to turn (incidentally why it was so easy to flip). And there was a hole in the floor that Charlie used to see the road because obviously being up you couldn’t see the strip. With the hole you could see right in front of you but really no further because the line of site
My Uncle Linwood built the bug and raced it. My dad helped too. Regarding The Dune buggy, The Frame was made in his old fiberglass shop in Lancaster MA. Linwood is still alive.
Yes, this is all true. They built it in their garage in Lancaster, MA as well as dune buggies. They are my cousins and my grandparents lived right next to them. We used to play on an old rusted out dune buggie on the side of their garage all the time.
IIRC, the Bardhal bug ended up in Millbury, Massachusetts. I remember going to the owner's house to buy parts from him way back then. I think he told me that he rolled the Bardhal bug, and that was the end of it. Was that your uncle ? He told me that he ran it up and down the East Coast. I remember also seeing it run, and do it's wheelies at Connecticut Drag-way,
joe vani also built a maverick wheelstander after the vw i am pretty sure it was built by bill abatacola in e p rhode island at east providence welding I also remember reading laedfoot charlie sang in a rock group named the marshmallow earthquake (?)if i can find an old hero card i have i will post it it had a lot of info on the back
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