Back in 1968, a young man, fresh from his tour of duty at Ft Bliss, Texas, had a dream. Rudy Inamoto had a passion for fast cars and dreamed of working on them, and racing them. Not just any automobile however, he had a particular fondness for European sports cars. Austin Martins, MGs, Porsches, you name it, he worked on it. Along the way, he started working on a few Volkswagen Beetles, which brou
ght back memories of Southern
California and his very first car. Not content on just repairing, he wanted to see just how fast he could make those little bugs go, especially when it came to drag racing in the quarter mile. He forged friendships and business relationships with many of the industry's greats. Gene Berg, Dean Lowry, Fumio Fukaya, Ed Fulton, Darrell Vittone, and many others. He even acquired a few "famous" race cars
including the The Deano Dyno-saur, and the Race Shop's 850 Fiat Spyder. Various publications have featured his race cars including Hot VW's, VW & Porsche, VW Classics, and most recently Ultra VW. Back in the day, he set many world race records. Seeing a VW Beetle blow the doors off a
V8 was commonplace for Rudy Inamoto and the crew of Competition Motors. He even raced what was arguably the very first front wheel drive drag car, a 1977 Volkswagen Scirocco. His best 1/4 mile time in that car was 13.65 secs at 100 mph. That was back in 1983, without nitrous or a turbo! In 1996, he built a "Pro Sedan". A 1973 Super Beetle body on an all tube chassis. Innovations continued with this project as he built the 2500cc motor based on a water-cooled Vanagon "wasser-boxer" block...
TO BE CONTINUED...
