Words and Photos: Chadly Johnson

In 1969 Dennis Johnson entered a unique 1:43 scale body model car with a 1:24 scale engine jammed into it at the Detroit Autorama. Dennis had no idea that he was about to spark a legendary line of show cars known as the Zingers from his creation. The massively out of proportion model caught the eye of product planners from MPC (Model Products Corporation) which lead to a full line of highly successful models introduced in 1971. Show promoter Bob Larivee was also inspired and figured full scale versions of the popular MPC models would be a real crowd pleaser for his International Championship Auto Shows so he commissioned 6 large scale Zingers to be built. Two builders were chosen, Chuck Miller who constructed the beetle, corvette, semi, and Dodge van as well as Steve Tansy who built the dragster and dune buggy. All 6 Zingers were built using full sized engines and approximately ½ scale bodies and became embraced by the hot rod community eventually becoming iconic symbols of an era of outrageous show cars.

Builder, restorer, and collector of early show cars Mark Moriarity grew up in the era of the Zingers and actually owned the original dragster at one point, but as Mark puts it “was not smart enough to keep it.” Through Mark’s many years of collecting he had come to own 2 Zinger bodies, both the beetle and the dune buggy. Nearly all the original bodies were created using plaster molds which resulted in just a hand full of bodies being built before the mold was junk. The beetle body on the other hand was 1 of 100 built as go cart bodies by Chuck Miller using a more stable fiberglass mold. Chuck had a spare body in his possession that Mark was able to purchase. The original dune buggy Zinger used an available go cart body that was offered at the time. A heavily used dune buggy body was picked up by one of Mark’s friends at a swap meet in Indiana and Mark was able to talk him out of it after spotting it in his garage. So with era correct spare bodies in hand Mark set out to build exact clones of the original full scale Zingers.

Mark set out to build the dune buggy first which brings up the question, how does somebody build a replica of something that they cannot physically see or touch? Well as Mark has done many times in the past, it’s through heavy research of old photographs and the use of a magnifying glass. In this case Mark was at least able to get a starting point when he was beginning work on the dune buggy by making a trip to the Promotions Inc showroom where the original beetle is on display. Mark was able to replicate a frame from observing the beetle and then constructed a 1” x 3” frame that would allow for correct placement of the engine, wheels, etc.

One of the main obstacles when building the cars was finding the correct engine parts, for example the dune buggy is running a BOSS 429 engine…how many of those do you see at thrift sales!? Mark wanted to build the cars accurately so he headed to the all Ford swap meet in Columbus, Ohio hoping to stumble across what he needed. Ironically Mark came across a correct set of BOSS 429 heads at the swap meet being used a sign advertising “Wanted BOSS 429 parts.” Mark said the heads were junk as they were full of cracks, basically they were being used to attract Ford speed junkies into the gentlemen’s booth like moths to a flame. The heads were not for sale, but Mark was able to talk the guy out of them and mounted them to a dimensionally correct 460 block. The double stacked blowers on the beetle Mark confesses are sand cast copies that he smoothed and polished. Mark reassured me that no real speed parts were hurt in the building of his Zingers.

Once the correct speed parts were located Mark focused on locating all the small details and hand fabricating what he could not find. Every detail on the Zingers is present such as the headlights on the dune buggy that turned out to be bicycle lights that Mark made sure were correct all the way down to the black switch that turns them on. The back tire on the beetle is a Goodyear blue streak that Mark created by painting the stripe on the tire. The beetle’s beautiful 4 into 1 exhaust was built by Mark and then plated. Speaking of plating, nearly all the components such as the suspension, axles, rear ends, backing plates, etc all had to be plated to be correct keeping the guys at Bo Decor Plating in Eagan, MN very busy. Mark’s fabricating skills were also put to the test as he was forced to hand craft several other pieces like the dune buggy’s tail lights, and the beetles wheelie bars. Once everything was in its place Mark blew the Zingers apart and personally sprayed coats of candy lime gold over a silver base on the dune buggy and bright yellow with gold murano pearl on the beetle. Pin striping duties were handled by Mike Iverson and upholstery on the dune buggy by Bob Holland.

When MPC introduced the Zingers line in 1971 they were considered “The hairiest, scariest fistfuls of muscle yet.” One thing is for sure they are outrageous and a true testament to the era they were created in. I asked Mark if he planned to build any more of the Zingers, and he laughed as he looked around his amazing and packed show room saying, “I don’t think so, I’m kinda out of room.” Mark’s lack of room is certainly not a bad thing as his garage and show room are packed with amazing and outrageous show cars and whether it’s more Zingers or not, I can’t wait to see what Marks turns out next.