Charity banger car endurance challenges are all the rage these days and this Stateside Fastback – purchased for just $500 – has to be one of the tastiest looking budget race car candidates we’ve seen so far…

Retro motorsport fans the world over quite rightly associate the distinctive Gulf Oil liveried Porsche teams of the late 1960s and ‘70s with old school endurance racing so it’s no surprise the cool looking light blue and orange colourscheme provided the inspiration for this totally nuts budget Fastback project.

Gulp Racing (get it?) is the brainchild of an US advertising agency called Plan B and their aptly named ’72 Fastback ‘Poorsche Carerror’ has been entered into various challenge events, including the ’24 Hours of Lemons’ banger car endurance race for cars bought and built for under $500…

The Fastback itself was spotted by the roadside and snapped up for just under the specified upper limit – it was rust-free, apparently, but otherwise looking rather sorry for itself. Lots of the original bits, such as the seats and bumpers were sold off to fund the necessary equipment to race the car – such as the roll bar and even a Porsche wail tale spoiler. In case you were wondering, the mahoosive air scoop on the roof is made from a wheelie bin…

They’re obviously a pretty whacky bunch of people, describing their car thus on a YouTube video clip of the car in action. “It has the speed of a methed-up jack rabbit, the precision handling of a garage sale skateboard and the panicked look of a middle aged man who’s just been kicked in the kerb for the flavour of a younger model.”

Sadly a holed sump put a stop to their fun during the 24 hour racetrack challenge, but judging by the motivation of the Gulp team, we doubt if it will be the last we hear from them! And the nice thing is, it’s all for charity – in this case a childhood cancer foundation called Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

Not only does the rescued vintage Dub look retro-chic, but beats the hell out of the usual tired Jags and Rovers you usually see on these kind of banger challenges. Here’s wishing them luck for the coming season…

Ian

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage