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The Legend of Bramble**** Brown

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Back in the 70s I worked at this race shop, we did a lot of stock cars, custom cars, vettes. Some cars that I assembled engines for..I wonder if the DEA ever confiscated them..Any way the shop car was a 66 corvette. This car was completely stripped out, the head light buckets were kept from rotating by judicious use of duct tape. It was the proving ground for many products made by a company called Vette Brakes, that was started in a guy's backyard garage. That car had more engine and trans combinations than anyone could imagine, 283s 350s, even some R&D on 400 small blocks that may..or may not..have found their way into a couple of stock cars. There was no HPDE back then, it was either race it or autocross it. this is where I learned to enjoy outrunning Porsches with lo buck beaters. The tires were bias ply, on widened 8 inch vette wheels, 10 in front, 12 in the rear. Now keep in mind there wasn't that many tire options back then, and everything was in 15 inch. We had to run treaded tires, so we ran competition rain tires, dirt tires, whatever we could scrounge.
It was a pretty successful piece...in the Tampa Bay area.
The car got it's name from the paint, it was never more than primered, but one day we decided that we should probably paint it to at least seal the fiberglass and primer, so we mixed up a bunch of old paint, which, unremarkably..turned out brown..but what color brown?
Bramble**** brown of course, the shop owner named it. so for years it was referred to as Bramble**** Brown, not just the color, the whole car.
One day there was a car show coming up so the shop guys decided that we wanted to enter BSB in it. The shop owner was..OK, as long as I don't have top spend any money on it and it has to happen after hours.
We scrounged up enough white paint to cover the whole car, then...then we flamed it. Red to Orange..to Yellow..it was gorgeous..or at least as gorgeous as it got for a car that had tire reliefs cut out with a saber saw. The engine was detailed, but we needed an interior.
As it turned out at the time, we had a 66 vette in the shop for some repair work..so we "borrowed" the interior out of it for BSB.
At the car show, we finished third, duct taped headlight pots and all, but the crowning piece was when the owner of the 66 vette showed up unexpectedly at the show, and while we were showing him around, remarked that the car had an interior "just like his".
Sunday night after the show we tore down BSB and and reinstalled the interior.
BSB went on for several more years, beating up expensive sports cars,, it had even more engines in it, but was finally sold for $2500 to a guy less the engine and trans.
I don't know what ever happened to BSB, but I hope it's still out there someplace, sticking it to imports. Hopefully it was never ruined by a collector, or restored, it deserves a better fate than sitting in somebody's garage.
If you ever see a 66 vette with a clapped out interior, saber sawed fender lips, duct tape holding the headlight buckets in, with faded flame paint..let me know.
 

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