Reply to "What's the story of prototype #01025?"

Espen’s car was a little bit of a detective story.

I learned the American owner’s name and city from Espen’s copy of the Bill Van ESS registry. Once I had that, it was pretty easy to Google away and get a lead.

I sent the owner listed in the registry a postcard, and he replied.

We got the VIN number confusion somewhat aligned. As Espen said, the GT5-S owner would like to get his Amerisport back.

It also turned out he had one of those original Amerisport air boxes, and carbs sitting on his garage shelf. He said the car didn’t run well with it, he thought it was caused by a carb issue, and removing it was the first thing he did to the GT5-S car. The carb/air box eventually got back into circulation via eBay in ~2017.

Anyway, Espen’s car still has a couple mysteries to solve, like a very early VIN, with (some) late features, for example - late (non-push button) door handles.

Maybe the later mysteries are a job for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo “....


Rocky