New Denzel Book

[Harlan Halsey]

Jim Perrin and Mark Brinker's new Denzel book arrived, and it is stunning! A two volume set of the highest quality. They cover not only the car but Wolfgang Denzel, his life, his racing, and a history of the Denzel in competition up to 1961. Of course, there are detailed descriptions of the car in all its variations. There are many many delightful period racing photos. Denzel and Porche had the same idea at the same time: Use the common VW as the basis for a sports car. Abarth in Italy and Chapman in England and many others had the same idea, each using his country's economy car as the basis. However there are two types of car companies: Those in the business of selling cars, and those, like Ferarri and Lotus which are mostly interested in racing. Ferrari and Lotus only sold street cars to support the racing. Wolfgang Denzel appears to belong mainly in this latter group while Porsche clearly belonged in the former. Over the lifespan of the Denzel car company, the decade of the 1950's, Denzel only sold some 60 odd cars. I am sure what justifies this beautiful book set 70 years after the fact that each of the authors owns a Denzel. What justifies our interest in the book is that The Denzel is essentially an aluminum bodied Speedster (Or America Roadster) which predated the Speedster by about 5 years.

There are a couple of odd things about the book and one odd thing about the car: You will look hard to find the weight listed. It is there, at about 1400 lbs. in an advertisement. The odd thing about the car is that most, apparently all but four, were three seaters. This has the effect of pushing the drivers position to the side of the car. But here is only one staged picture of the car with three aboard. Apparently about four two seat narrow body cars were produced. What the chassis width and track of these five inch narrower cars does not appear to be noted. One of these narrow body cars would seem to be more desirable for racing, although Wolfgang Denzel does not appear to have driven one. Tom Trabue's DL 155 is pictured and noted as the most raced Denzel. That is only partly true. When Tom had the car restored for "vintage racing" he saw fit to flair the fenders, add a front oil cooler, replace the engine, transmission, brakes, and wheels with Porsche components. No doubt that car goes well, but with modern tires, wider wheels, and more than twice the Denzel's power, it should. But is it a Denzel? Or maybe a Denzel-Porsche? There are two other Denzles locally which have been correctly restored, Mark Merril's and Tom Nedernhofer's by Ray Schubert. Ray also worked on Jim Perrins Denzel as I recall. And there is Terry Sullivan's wide body Denzel which he has driven to and from the Monterey Historics and run there for decades. Tom's car had and probably still has a 1700cc VW engine.

[Neil Bardsley]

Thank you.

[Mark Morrissey]

I love those cars. I did a story for 000 Magazine about an early Portuguese racer ( Joaquim Filipe Nogueira)who raced one that had a Porsche drive train.
I'll check out the book... thanks

[Brian R Adams]

"Where's your necktie? No son of mine is attending the races dressed like that."
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[Trevor Gates]

The 2 volume book is AWESOME!