Dash Plaques, Tech Stickers, and Whirling Tachs

Perhaps within the anatomy of our imagination, we might think once more of the screams coming from those small 948 cc Sprite engines as they round a corner at a long gone Northern California road race circuit. It could have been, "Anywhere, U.S.A."

"H" Production Sprites in a un-published photo hit the track. Image © Steve Chandler

A cult still exist of these "Bug-eye" devotees, and so it should. It seems as many car enthusiast got their automotive baptism pushing these little two seaters as fast as the gas pedals would let them. They were rather primitive, not by today's standards, but by those of yesterday, with a non-synchro first, plexi-glass slider windows that were removable from the doors, and the contortions a humanoid needed to access the rear trunk, by tilting the seat backs forward and diving in head first. However, the perfect race cars they made, it only took four screws to remove the windshield, add a roll bar, belts, a helmet with a bubble visor and off you went.

Fact is, even with their unclothed short comings, they were an education for a brotherhood, a rite of passage so to speak, for many that went on to more sophisticated machinery.

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