DEAN LOWRY's HISTORY : FROM THE EARLY DAYS TO EMPI AND TO D.D.S.

- THE EARLY DAYS Dean got first involved with engine and car tuning in the mid fifties when he build a Dragster based on some sort of US car (sorry, I'm really not into old US cars). See rare picture of this dragster on the right... Soon after, he went to work for Joe Vittone at Economotors in Riverside. Picture courtesy of Glenn MILLER.

- THE EMPI DAYS Dean join again Joe Vittone in 1963 at EMPI, Engeneering Motor Product Inc, a very successful accessories manufacturer for Volkswagen located in Riverside, in the sunny California. Dean used to work in the Research and Development Departement of EMPI. Dean prepared the world famous and record breaking VW Sedan Drag car, Inch Pincher and is said to have spent countless hours behind the Dyno preparing races engines, becoming by the way EMPI's ace engien tuner... Picture on left shows Dean sitting in a 420-pound class D/D dragster.

- THE DEANO DYNO SOARS DAYS In 1968, Dean decide to build his own business with his Brother Ken in Santa Ana, California. The name is today one of the most respected of all : Deano Dyno Soars. Thus campaining one of the most desirable VW race car of that time, an orange '54 oval window sedan soon to receive the purple metalflake treatment, the Lowry Bros had develop many parts for the VW (and the ugly Datsun...) : shifter (the Saf-Tee Shifter), special oil pump, cylinder heads, pistons & cylinders (well known 92mm), special manifolds, very rare rims...These parts are really going hard to find today, even in California and are simply impossible to locate here in France :(( Unfortunately, D.D.S. closed his doors in 1972. Below is a rare shot af Tera-soar, a fiberglass Amante motored VW built by Dean & Ken and raced at Bonneville Speedway on the salt, where the car broke records at 161 mph top speed in 1971.

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