Looks a lot like a Piranha kit car. I believe there was a drag car built out of one of them, but it looks like this one is VW or Corvair powered. Larry T
I remember seeing that car years ago. IIRC, it was built off a lotus ch***is and customized Lotus body. Found on google: Lee Eliminators was part of the Filter Dynamics Group that bought out EMPI in the early 1970's. LEE Eliminator stickers were seen on the EMPI Inch Pincher Too, Lightning Bug and a whole bunch of other race cars.
Not a Piranaha or Lotus...it's a concept car that was owned by actor James Brolin when he was on the "Marcus Welby, M.D." TV series...it's based on a VW pan and running gear, with a body built by Marbon, a division of Borg-Warner, formed out of an ABS plastic called, " Cycolac"... ...the object was to prove that this type of plastic could be used to build practical and strong automobile bodies... It was on the cover, and an article about it, in the March 1973 issue of "Street Rod", ( not "Street Rodder"), magazine...(sorry about the ****py scan, it's from the 1973 article)
I saw the small four-bolt wheel lug pattern on the wheels. VW did not have such a pattern back in the day - they had five-lug small and large patterns. You sure on the car being VW-based??? Perhaps they went to a different wheel pattern on this car, who knows? Neat car, in any case!
VW went to the small lug pattern around 1967 so it could have been a VW. If you enlarge the picture there is definatly a bug motor sticking out the back. I think you need striped bell bottoms to drive it...
..........AMT purchased the rights from Marbon to build the plastic car, and agreed to purchase the plastic bodies and fibergl*** ch***is from them. Originally AMT planned to build 50 cars a year. To promote the new venture, AMT decided to build both a drag racing and sports racing version of the car. They even gave the car a new name, the "Piranha." The Piranha dragster was build and toured the drag racing circuit in 1967 and was a big hit. It was one of the first rear-engine "funny cars" and almost cracked the 200 MPH barrier. The sports car version was built and campaigned by veteran driver **** Carbijal.......... http://www.c-we.com/piranha/ This was in the 60's and it looks like the Street Rod mag was 73, so who knows.
Found this on the web. Maybe it will jog sombody's memory. I recall Lee being an aftermarket tire that was popular in the 60's/70's and came out with the Eliminator line of tires in response to and as compe***ion for Friestone Wide Ovals, Good Year Bluestreaks, General Grabers, UniRoyal Tiger Paws. Empi was a VW performace house, and they also had Corvair stuff as well, wonder if the wheels are Corvair sourced?
Ahhh!! Flatheads, man my fav plant.Best for flame throwin, the best for mileage with the right gearin. My 52 Merc is powered with one, been beaten it for 20 years and still givin my 24 M.P.G. And if I could find a cheap way to go 5 speed standard I would be gettin 30 M.P.G., Dont get me wrong, the Mercomatic 2 speed has held up for 57 years...lol
There were a couple of Corvair powered ones, and the Hemi Powered Drag Racer. And there was one that ended up in the Netherlands, which was Renault powered I believe. I'd like to retrace more of that ones history... http://images.google.com/imgres?img...nw=128&prev=/images?q=cycolac&hl=en&sa=G&um=1
Looks kinda like one of those TERROR--GATOR things with 6 tires on it that you could drive in the water !! >>>>.
There were Lee tires but Lee eliminators was also oil filters, i have a new-in-the-box "Maxifilter 1000" that has a finned housing and replaceble filter cartridge. Looks almost like a modern System 1 filter except the package has cool 1970 dragsters and funny cars.
The Brolin car appears to be a racing version of the CRV-I built by Marbon Chemical. Does anyone know the whereabouts of this car?
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