Bad Buggies and Ballyhoo: Bashing through the Desert in VW-Powered Off-Roaders

If Baja California resembles a dog?s hind leg, then Ensenada would lie near the top rear of its thigh, while La Paz finds itself nestled in a crook at the top of its toes. In 1967, a motley crew of dudes set off down the peninsula in search of glory and bragging rights. There wasn?t much in the way of cash involved; the level of danger was high, the chance of mechanical failure, very high. Twenty-seven hours and 38 minutes after leaving Ensenada, Vic Wilson and Ted Mangels crossed the finish line in La Paz in a Meyers Manx, having covered 950 filthy miles in the little Volkswagen-powered buggy.
Class 11, the choice of strident retronauts and staunch masochists.
Then, as now, a variety of vehicles contested the race, which began as the NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally and morphed along the way into the SCORE Baja 1000. Modern off-road racing vehicles have been divided into classes, and the most rudimentary of them all are the Class 11 cars. Stock-bodied air-cooled VW Beetles running a 1600-cc engine that could?ve been just as easily built in the late Sixties as it could be today, Class 11s are slow, violent, a hoot, and an enduring testament to the fundamental toughness of Ferry Porsche?s basic design. They can, at least, utilize the independent rear suspension introduced by Volkswagen at the end of the 1960s. The Class 9 cars make do with the old-school swing axle. More obvious than the swing axle, however, is the 9?s bodywork. There isn?t a whole lot of it, and it shaves about 1...
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