Send us your captions for this Bugeye Photo of the week!
Ours… “The only way Bob could bring home another car was if he brought his wife flowers.”
Special thanks to Robert K for supplying the photo. Fun Bugeye photos welcome!
Bugeye Sprite Downshifting basics
Out for a test drive with a client recently, the driver downshifted prior to each stop sign, and let the clutch do the braking. With each deceleration, he let the clutch out at idle RPMs, which made me cringe. When we parked the Bugeye, I could smell the hot clutch complaining. So I thought I would make a new rev-match video for anyone less current on manual transmission cars.
It’s difficult to show with all the wind noise you hear from our convertibles, but the basic concept is that you want the clutch to meet the engine with the least friction possible, and by blipping the throttle while easing out the clutch, the union of the spinning surfaces is more gentle with less wear on all moving parts.
You can still use engine braking to decelerate, but make sure you are kind to your clutch when you do!
Caitlyn Jenner’s Supercharged Bugeye Sprite-update
Building this celebrity Bugeye is extra-exciting, because we figure a few million more people will see this car than any of our others. But in the end, we’re all just Bugeye lovers regardless of our vocation or lifestyle, and in our building, we are pushing to make every car our very best, regardless of the ultimate destination.
This Bugeye is especially fun because it pairs supercharged performance with stock wheels and white walls, which is a delightful blend of old and new. Were this car fit with wide tires and minilight rims, it would be trying too hard to be a performance car it cannot be, not relative to modern performance standards anyway. Instead, what we now have is super power Bugeye what will light up the tires with ease, at a slow enough speed that it doesn’t make you scared and instead just makes you smile. You can have as much fun in this car at 30 as you might in a new GT3 at 80. It’s nice to avoid liability for a change.
This project is now moving from mechanical to cosmetic. We’ll spend our time next week sanding and buffing the paint for maximum gloss. We’ll also put on some test miles to make sure there are no remaining glitches that need to be addressed. Soon, this super Bugeye will be ready for the enclosed trailer trip to Los Angeles.
Lime Rock 2016 fall festival and concours recap
Below you will see our Bugeye “The Egg” in the concours. The car looked awesome, but was no match for the striking red 1957 BMW 507 parked next door, which won the class. Second was a wonderfull little yellow Morretti (see slideshow, below) and third went to a great four cam Speedster with racing history (parked on the other side of the BMW). It was a tough class!
Still, it was a delight to watch the $1,795 (when new in 1958) Bugeye draw what seemed to be just as much attention as the BMW which was $8,988 when new in 1957. Today, the bimmer is worth about about $2.3 million in concours condition, with the hardtop alone on that car adding $75k in value!
I love the Lime Rock concours because of the variety of the cars shown. My favorite this year was the Lancia D50 shown above, a mid fifties formula one car with pannier fuel tanks. Check out the vintage video of Fangio driving one of these at Monaco!
Click “Read More,” to see the slideshow with all the pictures from the event!
[Read more…] about Lime Rock 2016 fall festival and concours recap
(Bugeye) nose job made easy
When Bill Prout bought this Sprite it had been a race car its entire life. He painstakingly converted it to a Sebring Sprite, by locating a rare Williams and Pritchard hardtops and then this year changing the nose to a Sebring model. He has raced the car every year as the transformation has unfolded. This year we also installed a 1275 race engine, five speed Ford conversion and rear disk brakes.
Here are some pictures of the original nose, the raw fiberglass replacement and then the painted Sebring version in the paddock at Lime Rock this weekend, where Bill is qualifying for the fall festival vintage races as we write this. Good luck Bill!
Bugeye photo of the week
Captions welcome! EG:
“Night night, sleep tight, don’t let the Bugeyes bite.”
Or
“After his wife left, Frank finally got what he always wanted.”
