Truggy
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A truggy is a type of high performance off-road racing vehicle that combines features from two older existing categories of off-road racing vehicles,
trucks A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...
and buggies. The first truggies were built for racing in the SCORE and BITD off-road
desert racing Desert racing is the act of racing through the desert in a two- or four-wheeled off-road vehicle. Races, which generally consist of two or more loops around a course covering up to , can take the form of Hare and Hound or Hare scramble style eve ...
series, held in
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
and
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
.


History

Desert off-road racing began in the 1960s in
Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
and expanded over the next 30 years to include dozens of races and several sanctioning organizations. These organizations created a class structure so that while many types of vehicles could race, direct competition could be segmented into groups of similar vehicles. These classes evolved over time, and included classes for near-stock vehicles, as well as "open" classes that permitted unique custom-built vehicles. One of the most popular and fastest classes in the 1990s was the 'Open Buggy' or 'Unlimited' class, which permitted maximum leeway in designing a vehicle. Most buggies of the era remained loosely based on the architecture of the original
VW Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...
automobile, with a rear engine, an independent rear transaxle suspension, and relatively shorter wheelbase. The "open" or "unlimited" buggy classes became the home to extremely high performance vehicles. These "Class 1 unlimited" buggies soon did away with the entire production Volkswagen chassis and sheet metal, and instead used a full tube chassis. In almost all cases they continued to use the rear-engine / transaxle architecture of the VW, replacing the iconic Volkswagen's air cooled 4-cylinder
boxer engine A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, wh ...
with larger and more powerful engines from a variety of manufacturers, especially the related Porsche motors. Transaxle strength was often a limiting factor of these designs, while their greatest attributes included their light weight, extreme wheel travel, strength and overall custom built suitability to the task of racing at high speeds on harsh desert roads. Another groups of classes that had increasing popularity throughout the 1990s were the various truck based classes, for both mini and full-sized trucks. These truck classes were popular as they reflected more closely the vehicles bought by average American and Mexican consumers for use off-road, as they were based on modified production trucks of the era. The fastest truck classes evolved over time from one with limited modifications to a more open class rules, that permitted massive changes to many aspects of the vehicle, but still generally required using the stock frame and some of the body from a production vehicle. These high-end trucks were both very fast and very reliable. Their greatest attributes included extremely large and powerful front-mounted V8 engines, larger wheels and tires to absorb rough terrain, extremely rugged rear truck axles, and increasingly long travel suspension. In 1994 SCORE decided to run the Parker 400 off-road race over two days. Day one would see the new class of Trophy Trucks run on the course, and day two would see all other classes race over the same course. Jim Smith, owner of Ultra Custom Wheels entered his Mike Smith built Trophy Truck and also entered a Class One car into the race. However the Class One car, was in fact his Trophy Truck without its body, but with its interior aluminium panels painted black. Jim and his crew called it a truggy and the name took hold. In 1995 the team Terrible Herbst Motorsports decided to build an unlimited Class 1 buggy that used the basic front engine, rear solid axle architecture of a truck. This vehicle, which was designed and fabricated by Mike Smith Fabrication. it was built like an unlimited buggy, with a full custom triangulated tubular chrome-moly chassis, but with the truck-like layout of big American V-8 motor in front of the driver, and a very strong truck-style rear axle and large 37" Trophy truck sized wheels and tires on all corners. The combination in many ways combined the best characteristics of each of the two donor types: the lower weight, higher strength chassis, and extremely large suspension travel of the buggies, with the massive
horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...
and stronger rear end design of the top trucks. The Terrible Herbst Truggy was given the name "El Tiburon" and "The Landshark", in part due to the paint scheme originally applied to the all-
fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...
custom body of the vehicle. It dominated class one for many years after its introduction, winning back-to-back SCORE Class 1 titles in 1997 and 1998, as well as the overall (all classes) points championship in 1998. It continued to be the most dominant vehicle in the sport for nearly a decade, winning first and second place repeatedly in both class and overall categories in both the SCORE and the BITD series. As a result of this domination the truggy format became popular with other builders and the term became the generic term from a specially built off-road vehicle that uses truck architecture (front engine, solid rear axle) but unlimited buggy style construction (tube chassis, no production parts retained). The format also became popular with the newer disciplines of closed-course stadium off-road racing, and extreme rock-crawling, where 4-wheel drive versions were created.


See also

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SCORE Class 1 SCORE Class 1 is an open-wheel unlimited-class that competes in the SCORE off-road race series including the Baja 1000, Baja 500, San Felipe 250 and the SCORE Desert Challenge. Class 1 is defined as an unlimited four-wheel single and two-sea ...


References

{{Offroading Off-road vehicles Modified vehicles