Ep 355 Lyle Cherry pt 1 Interview by Dean Kirsten 2012
Lets Talk Dubs Classic The Classic VW podcast
Ep 355 Lyle Cherry pt 1 Interview by Dean Kirsten 2012
Lets Talk Dubs Classic The Classic VW podcast · Apr 10, 2026
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Happy Friday, guys, and welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Dubs.
I'm your host, Bill T. What's Friday, and you know we have another podcast coming for you.
And this podcast is a real special podcast.
So my friend, Dean Kirsten, and I were having a conversation and we found out, he had let
me know that he had a bunch of recorded interviews from back in the 2000s while he was doing
interviews for the magazine, and he would just record long form interviews and ask all
kinds of questions.
Then obviously the magazine come out and he'd have to condense it to a certain
amount of word count and just kind of put in the highlights well.
He told me he had that, but the audio quality wasn't great, and so I said, well, send him
to me, and luckily he had them digitally, and I reprocessed them and enhanced the audio,
and we've got some pretty good gold here.
So on today's podcast, you're going to hear the background interview for the article
in January 2013, Hot VW's interview with Lyle Cherry from Dean Kirsten, and it happens
to take place in August of 2012 is when the interview took place, and it was later published
in January of 2013.
So it's really interesting to hear from the guys that lived it and the long form story
because during these long form conversations, a lot of little nuggets of information
pop out.
And so I think it's great and I'm really grateful for Dean to have given me the
opportunity to get these published forms and put them out there.
So all credit goes to Dean Kirsten, the originator of the history tracking VW guy and one of my
pals.
So appreciate it.
I hope you guys enjoy this listen to the podcast and really get some new history.
This will be part one of two parts of this interview.
So before we get this podcast started, don't forget to support those who support your
favorite podcast.
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So guys, let's get into it.
In the beginning of this interview, you'll hear a little intro between Dean
and I and then we'll get into the interview.
So I'm excited to bring it to you guys.
First of many archived recordings that are that have captured history behind
the pages of the magazine.
So let's get ready for that.
Some classic Dean Kirsten gold on this week's Let's Talk Dubs Lyle Cherry.
OK, so what you guys are about to hear is a recording that was done back
in Texas in around 2012 with Dean Kirsten and Lyle Cherry.
And I've got Dean on here to kind of give us a little bit of back story on
when this interview took place, where it was and why he was doing the interview.
Dean, tell us a little bit about about the background of this interview.
Sure, not a problem.
During that period of time, I was going to Texas quite a bit.
My father-in-law lived down there, and so we were going several times a year.
And then I was going to the VW drag races at Ennis.
And with all my trips down there, I got to know Lyle Cherry.
And the more I talked to him and the more I listened to his stories,
I realized, is it boy, do I need to sit down with him and record
his voice and his memories?
I really didn't have any idea how much input he had on the parts
that he developed for the VW industry.
And so this interview was something that we did at Dennis Butz's house,
his good friend, and we just sat down in Dennis's living room
and I put a recorder down and we just let her rip.
And from the from these recordings, I condensed it down into an interview
that we did in the magazine.
I think you figured out it was like the first part of 2013, January 2013.
Yeah. Yeah. And so it's just what you read in the magazine.
It's just a fraction of what we talked about.
And so, you know, this recording, you'll get a lot more information
that you ever will because, you know, we lost Lyle here a few years ago.
And this recording, he talks a lot about what he did.
Yeah, I was actually surprised listening to kind of his background
and how how much he was involved in like the early days
of a lot of the stuff that was going on, especially like, you know,
from he was out in Texas and towing all the way out to Southern California
and racing all these guys and doing all this stuff.
I mean, it was it was pretty interesting to see how involved he was in the, you know,
like less involved, more influential, I think is the word I'm kind of looking for.
Yes, you know, and and I think the one part in this interview
that I find really interesting is his transmission work.
And he never was happy with the existing close ratio gears that we had back then.
And he's his development of the main shaft
where he started putting together different gears, working with Joe Liberty.
And what the main shafts that he came up with were really unique
and the first of its kind in the VW industry.
And I found those bell stories fascinating.
Yeah, there's lots. There's lots of cool tidbits.
And I really appreciate you letting me, you know, take these recordings that you had
and reprocess them and try to get the audio quality to where, you know,
we've clipped out a bunch of the silence and kind of threaded it together
a little bit better and I've gone through and on my end,
kind of snipped it into categories of the different things that they talked about.
And I really it's really been enjoyable for me to just sit and listen to it
because, you know, this is that you were doing the same thing that I do every week,
except you weren't broadcasting it, right?
It was you having these private conversations.
And the goal there is just all these little nuggets of information
that are just a byproduct of the conversation.
Like, oh, yeah. Yeah. While we were doing that,
this is also when we figured out this, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah.
And we, you know, the formal part of this interview was a dentist's place
in the living room. We were sitting around talking and then
after a few hours, we broke for lunch.
And then we went to a little restaurant for some burgers and stuff.
And I've learned over the years that you've turned the recorder on
when you guys have lunch, because that's when the good stuff comes out.
And I missed in some of the earlier interviews I did,
I turned the recording off and afterwards I regretted it.
So there's a second part in this interview where it might get a little noisy
in the background, but because we're just in a restaurant ordering lunch.
But that's when the stories really become interesting.
Yeah. And I think, you know, and I've got this to where I've kind of
I've parceled it up into a couple of different things where I might do
two versions of this, just to kind of make it good enough
where it's bite-sized pieces that you can listen to.
But yeah, I'm definitely grateful that you had this recording and we had this.
It was and what's funny is you and I just had this random conversation
and you said, yeah, I got that stuff recorded.
I'm like, you haven't recorded.
Send it to me. Let me see what I can do with it.
Because I'm looking, I'm looking here at my list.
I've got interviews like this with Bear,
Bob Cacer from Filter Dynamics,
Spumio, Jamie Halverson, Jeff Linger, Joe Horvath,
lots of Joe Horvath, John Lundberg, the announcer, John Smith, Ken Lowry.
The Slays, Poncho Mendoza from Mexico, Richard McPeak.
And it just goes on and I've got, you know, I've got I've saved these.
I just wish I would have done this earlier.
Yeah. Well, no, it's it's great.
And I think I think we maybe found like a new series to start putting together
and just put Dino's gold from the good days and just, you know,
the direct the direct interviews of some of these things.
Because Bear is a guy I never got to interview and he's passed.
There's a lot of guys that aren't here anymore and to be able to kind of
hear their story today is I just think it's so great, man.
And so I appreciate you letting me let me kind of go through this
and tune it up a little bit and get it and kind of make it ready
for publishing. So it's sounds good to me.
I'm glad you're interested in letting other people listen to this.
Oh, no, I love it.
I think that it's it's the stuff that I live for, you know what I mean?
Like that these these nuggets of history that are out there because,
you know, politics and influence and all that stuff and and placement
in the hobby a lot has to do, you know, like they say history is
written by the victor, right?
So whoever's on top in whatever certain scene, they might have influenced
in the magazine and that might produce articles that are favorable
to some people versus other people.
And sometimes there's just in there's just that always going on
in any type of industry that you're at.
And I think the thing that's so cool about this is, you know,
it's just a raw conversation of people talking and it's just, you know,
you know, there's two guys going down the same timeline
and they're just in two different places with two different vantage points.
And I think it's always interesting to to hear those conversations.
There was there was no barriers on this one.
So it might it might get a few people's nerves, but that's just the way it is.
Yeah, no. Well, hey, thanks so much for letting me take these recordings
and publishing them.
And I look forward to getting some more and doing some more cool stuff with these things.
Not a problem. Thanks, buddy.
So what I'd like to do, Lyle, is put that recorder and just let you talk.
Um, this is my idea is a few years ago, we did an interview with Ken Lowry.
And and unfortunately, I never really had a chance to sit down with his brother,
Dean while he was still alive in 99.
And so I really want so I said, somebody needs to sit down with Ken Lowry
and talk about what they did.
So we went up to when he lived in Ventura and I went up with Paul
and Mark Chalet, and we spent a day just talking about what he had done
and everything, and we ended up doing a two part story in the magazine
on the brother's Lowry, both Ken and Dean.
And then since that time, we've had a lot of requests for more of the same.
And so about a month, actually about three weeks ago, I was up in Oregon.
I saw Daryl Vatone and we spent a couple of days with Daryl Vatone.
And same thing, no one had, everyone had interviewed Joe Vatone
over and over about Ampey and all this stuff.
And I wanted to concentrate on Daryl's background
because so much of it was always about Joe, Joe, Joe and Daryl's son.
So I did an interview a few weeks ago with Daryl.
That's going to come out in the November issue.
And he had some photographs that I scan and we're going to use
a lot of his old photographs and stuff.
And so with that idea,
I remember the interview that Ray Ittings did on the radio with you,
Bolts cast.
And I remember listening to that, you know, several years ago when he did it.
And so I since Ray doesn't have them on the internet anymore,
I emailed Ray last week and I said, you know, is there a chance
I could get a copy of the interview you did with you?
So he found the file and sent it to me and I kind of reviewed it.
This week I listened to it a couple of times and some of the points that you
covered and even though it was during a one hour program,
you covered such a wide variety of things kind of quickly.
We have more time to delve into more details this time.
And so there was some things that were brought out that I wrote
some notes on that I wanted to kind of get into.
But in the way this works is I just we just kind of have a conversation
and you talk about, you know, things that you've done
and your feelings and accomplishments and and things that interest you
and and also influenced you.
And then when it's all we're all done, I will go back and listen
to the recording and start picking out points.
And I try to put it in the word somehow and kind of compress things down into
not so much a question and an answer, but more of a of a story
with the points that we're talking about.
Instead of hot BW, you know, while words you grow up,
Lyle, you know, Glendale or whatever it is, it's going to be more of a story.
I like creating it more because I can cover a lot more
in that format when you have a question and answer.
It takes up a lot of room and I don't have a lot of room.
So anyway, that's kind of what we're going to do.
I guess that if you if you're able to find any of the old photographs,
I know you lost a lot of them in the fire.
If you were able to find any photographs
or maybe have something on the wall at your shop,
you're OK. And I brought my little scanner.
And we can just do that on the depth with my laptop and my scanner a little bit.
We can just do that on the desk.
We'll do that later and we'll go from there.
So I'd like to start out
a little bit of your background as far as growing up in Southern California,
I believe, and what what the influence is,
what exposures you had to mechanical things, automotive,
how did you get the direction that you ended up taking?
So why don't you start from?
Oh, well, I took an automotive class in high school,
but then I got a 32, 3 window forward.
So what year are we talking now?
Probably 57.
OK.
And then that might correct that you are you correct
that you grew up in Glendale?
OK. And did you was there any?
Did you take any classes at that time?
Was was there any industrial arts things in school worth?
Yeah. Mentioning.
I played more sports and then that
and automotive being I was interested in being 15 years old,
I didn't have a car, so my sister had a 32, 3 window
and she was going through divorce and I bought it from her.
Basically had to set flat head with I can't remember what heads of that
and I wasn't lying.
But anyway, I made it the motor a lot bigger.
Got drunk and sold it and started on a nail head duet motor.
OK. And where did you learn the mechanical part of it?
Just do it. Just you just picked it.
I didn't have a dance.
My parents abandoned this.
I didn't have a father or anything.
So I just did it.
Brothers.
My sister and brother.
Say again. I have a twin brother.
Do you really?
You'll be here tomorrow.
Identical for eternal?
No. Really?
I did not know the names.
All that it Dennis brought me when I broke my first leg.
He brought me a bunch of
or their videos or this CDs of DVDs of the old stuff
and where I did I got all my flat head work was at C and T
and Gore Hollywood.
My Lakers from Boulevard.
It's big, which I didn't realize is when the best places out there
get stuff done and they help me.
I can't remember a guy's name that helped me plug into that.
It was your brother also in the cars, too.
A little bit.
But not as much as you.
OK.
He had a 35 set in the driveway.
Then he was going to be a mortician.
And went off to some place in San Fernando Valley is running around
with a guy and he came home for the weekend.
We got back.
They told him, go get this body.
And it was his buddy had been in a car wreck and burned.
So that ended that bringing around.
So so working on that the early Fords and flat heads and stuff.
And then, OK, give me a direction.
What were you? What were you?
How were you?
Of course, you're still with late teens now.
Your early jobs.
What were you some of your early jobs that you had?
California worked in a hospital in the kitchen.
And that's to get the money from a car.
OK.
All right.
And then I was moving to Texas.
At what year?
To Dallas, I married.
I went to school with an Idaho in the fourth grade.
And when did you move to Texas?
In 61.
1961, OK.
How did your brother move to?
Or did he just?
No, he came a couple of years later.
But he's only here a year and went back to California
and got married.
OK.
So once you moved to Texas, then what did you started doing?
I continued to do it.
That's construction work.
And my wife's dad had a Porsche.
And he was in with the guy that run the dealer here.
And he told him if he found someone
would be a good mechanic, they'd hire him.
They'd hire him.
And that's how I got hired.
OK.
And they sent me to school before I ever touched one.
So they went to the Volkswagen school?
Mm-hmm.
OK.
Or actually, was it a Porsche school or a?
I went to Porsche school.
Most of that stuff all burned off the walls at the house.
One of them, the Porsche ones, one of them
was at the shop.
And one of the VW ones at the shop.
But they had basic training.
It was all kind of fronting in, transmission in the engine,
fuel injection all the way in.
That was the Ford car company?
Mm-hmm.
What turned out later to be University of Oaks
and Raptor?
But it was originally called the outward car company.
OK.
And these guys are so rich, owned all these places.
It's unbelievable.
Well, that was on 7th Street and 4th.
Yeah.
So after you attended the schools,
then you started being a, then you went to work for a foreign
car company?
Yeah, I went to school, came back.
And the next Friday, I got married.
So I'd worked it.
And that was in October of 61.
OK.
And I didn't share for what I was doing.
To be honest, I was trying to build a fuel
very close to 18 years old.
That isn't smart.
No.
OK.
So you were just as a line mechanic then at that point?
Volkswagen's and Porsche's?
Volkswagen for probably two years.
And they sent me Porsche school.
All right.
I didn't want to go, but they sent me,
because I don't care for most of Porsche customers.
All right.
And then in 66, I decided I better
get good out of Nevada family.
So and in 65, I was a head unit guy at University of Volkswagen.
Meaning, describe what you mean by head unit guy?
Oh, the engine transmission rule shop.
And I was a guy that did it, most of them.
I had a guy help me, but I was there.
And then I went to see Lyle Osman,
and I think there can't remember where they are.
So I barely bear it.
I swear it was there.
And L, I spoke to the dog gallery.
There were three unit guys in there.
I was there a year, then they basically
bought me back to come back to university.
I was the only one there from late 65 till 68.
And then I went to Paul Brenner's Volkswagen.
It's 71, I opened my own shop.
1975, OK, open it.
71.
71, OK.
An interesting thing about after he'd opened this shop,
he was still doing transmissions and stuff for the dealer.
I say he had all the dealer's tools and stuff it.
Sure, all right.
They'd buy him for me one, a lot of Larkham.
They didn't have them.
Here in Larkham, they bought the tools and brought them to me.
So is this the same business you have now?
And so what was the name of it at that time?
Well, I was still working in the dealer when I had it.
So I just call it Lyle Cherry Enterprise.
So I wouldn't have any VW.
They couldn't drive around a finder
and let no one know it was there.
They got the dealer someone.
They would at the dealers that really was a stopover deal.
They'd send someone to you to test drive a car with them
and try to get you to work on the car at home.
See if you do it.
Really?
Oh, she dream.
Well, they were dazzling against it.
And everyone.
So so by going it so by opening your own business
all the pride that the majority of the work you were doing
was coming from the dealer then?
Well, a lot of motors and stuff were used cars with them.
And then for two years.
And then I would do another stuff for other people.
I wouldn't take jobs from the dealer.
I mean, if someone had asked me to work out of home,
I wouldn't do it.
Because they were paying me to do it.
Right.
I didn't think that was right.
And then I went out.
Well, like I was an asshole all the time.
I was always messing with everyone
at the dealers cost me my job.
But I already had everything but the compressor
when I went to work.
I mean, I like to do didn't have a lot of machines
or anything, but OK.
And then Richard Allen at university,
his dad was a general manager.
They had a drag race car.
Small wonder Ricky Johnson drove it.
Had a lot of trouble with it.
OK, what year are we talking now?
Well, the end of 71 versus 70 T.
OK, and a small wonder and Ricky Johnson drove that one.
And Ricky Johnson, when stuff had come into the dealer pliers
for like bomb tool, that's how I got a hip up Mr. Ball.
He'd give me the stuff when I was at the Brennan's.
And then I went with Richard Allen to California
to set up the empty dealer for a university of all-spicature.
OK.
And that was in 71 or early 72.
Now, tell me more about that now.
Tell me about.
So now say that again.
I didn't quite understand what you meant.
OK, that they were thinking about buying the dealers,
you know, amputeed dealership.
And this is Richard Allen, did you say?
Yeah, it was the guy's son that I went out there with.
And the name of the dealer?
University of all-spicature.
Oh, it was still University.
OK, go ahead.
And then I started helping Richard and Ricky on their car.
OK, before we get into that, let's
just finish this part.
So you actually came to California then and you went to MP?
Yeah, I went to MP in a week and they set the deal out.
Oh, so you did?
OK, so you set the deal out.
So that.
I really don't know why he wanted to go.
Well, he was stupid, really.
Come to Pied out years later, they bought him a car dealership
and he couldn't read and write.
Brilliant.
OK.
And so that was actually so that was your first interaction
with MP at that point.
OK.
When the dealer I had been at was an MP dealer too, Bob Brenner.
But MP, I mean, University had a lot of MP product.
And the county, every BWD, there was an MP dealer
in the end of the cycle?
I ain't there.
Because when Jay, what happened with the MP dealer,
one that got all screwed up and they had bought Revmaster,
you know, all of them were on that one row.
Right.
Oh, shoot.
Lee Layton.
Well, your bath.
And I was on the Paul Chalets.
I don't want him to know this, to piss me off.
I was on his preferred buyer, you know,
us being C, he had the C's.
Well, he never sent me all this stuff.
They were getting rid of the 88s and all this,
which I wasn't interested in steering wheel
and all that stuff.
So when I go out there, they tell me the guy,
I can't remember, isn't that the Farts Maddie Brennan
told me they were selling all this stuff off.
So going to see my mother, that was a good eye.
You know, I went out there and asked Paul about it.
Well, he went to lunch and that pissed me off.
Then Jamie come walking in,
who I didn't know who he was, or that guy.
They asked if he could help me.
Which the dealer told me, send the stuff back there
and they'd bill me for it.
So I sent all the stuff that I bought back there.
Brennan's.
And then Jamie and other.
He took me over to Roberto Street Warehouse.
Here's all these steering wheel.
We kept trying to sell.
I don't want him.
There's this big metal deal in there.
I said, what's in there?
He says, oh, they took all the pistons out of cylinders
to put the 82 stroke slipper skirt one in it.
And I said, I want to buy that.
And he said, oh, that's crazy.
I put that into that.
And I seen some bunch of 180 millimeter flywheels
and clutches over there.
And I went over and looked.
I said, you got any 48 Manapole kits
and flinkies for 48 IDAs.
And he said, no.
And I said, well, here's one right here.
He says, it's not all there.
I said, I want it.
And I said, can I dig through this shit?
He says, yeah, and I find instead of 39s,
well, they'd be a 39 stock exhaust valve head boarded.
I says, what about there's heads?
There's no heads.
They're stock.
I said, no, they aren't.
He goes over and gets some computer print out.
He says, they're not for sale
and puts them in his trunk.
They're on on it.
Well, then I find another set.
And he sells them to me for $125.
And then him and I talked a lot.
I'd go see him.
And I was talking one time
and I asked him about the MP drawing stuff.
He said, well, Baton is on a three year contract.
He's looking for, well, I've got him.
I took him out of his office.
He says, you want him.
I said, yeah, I want him.
Two weeks.
I showed you one bike.
Two weeks later there, I had him.
And then he said something about the trademark.
I said, yeah, I'll buy it.
And I showed you the papers
for the right transfer at my name.
Yeah, I haven't seen that for a while.
We'll have to pursue that a little bit more.
So you came out, so you heard that,
now this was after the MP selling out the filter dynamics?
Okay.
So then you heard that they were selling out
in quantities or something too?
They had a lot lighter.
Okay.
Well, I don't know how many years later.
And then, so then you came to California
to visit your mother and you went to MP
and tried to see what you could buy.
And that's when you met Jamie Halverson.
Yeah.
All right.
So before that, they had this drag car
and he'd all this shit and hot VW and everything.
And Rick and him said something.
So how quick can you imagine?
Played with VW motors for drag racing.
I have VH stuff.
So we built over the 82 MP roller motor.
And they have the first pass they did.
It was 1198 with it.
Went hardly anyone was running them.
All right.
So this is a, this is 2000.
This is a 82 by 88.
Yeah.
And that was probably in a rally in the tears.
That's probably 72.
I'd have to ask Ricky, because I don't remember.
They had, they built a child car,
top car called small one to play, right?
And what they had is full top silver car.
And then it went Ricky run the chop top
with a very big MP emblem on top of it.
Now it was the chop top one.
And then Mel Crone in Houston,
built a car, tried to copy the instrument sure.
And it's a cubed one.
And a brand of mine that I can't remember what to do.
It was Larkham or something, shop foreman.
I was doing stuff for him.
And he kept telling me they had this car
and they were gonna sell up to 3,500.
Finally it got down.
He says you can probably get it for 500 bucks.
Okay. Now let's slow down.
All right. Now who, now who would this,
who did you have this conversation with now?
I don't know what.
On this car, this adventure too,
what you're getting to.
The adventure, Ricky Marshall.
Ricky Johnson had a,
when Richard had a small wonder too.
Okay. It was chop top.
Okay.
And then I helped him with that.
And then he got, Ricky got drafted,
but he failed the physical.
But anyway, I hear all kinds of stuff
and I don't say anything.
And the guys at university said
they were coming and getting the car.
I had it.
So when they said it, I went and told Ricky
I'm gonna write a big ass bill you owe me on that car.
I think I wrote it for over a thousand.
They ended up giving it to Ricky.
And, okay. So, and that's the small wonder too?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Then I don't know what he did with it
because I bought Mel Crunt that car
from Billy Barrett Volkswagen.
Well, I went in there and the guys
that stole the mag and the distributor
and the heads off of it.
I knew a lot of these guys and they're talking.
I'm just listening.
And when they take it up, they want,
I don't remember, thousand bucks,
Billy Barrett come out, he's mad as hell.
I said, well, I'll tell you what,
I'll give you 300 for it.
Well, no, all the parts are done when I told you that.
And he said something to me and it pissed me off.
And I said, I'll give you 300
if I get this new set of MP88s in the parts department.
Well, parts manager was the one
doing the deal on the race car
and told him not to buy anything.
So, but him and I are good friends later.
So I bought the car.
Was this in Houston or in Dallas?
And it was real funny
because when that car ran in Houston
and ran at that old Dallas track,
Gary Loeffman said, come to dealer,
I was v-racing them and said,
I'll pay for a drag for everything for a BW drag car
if you'll build it.
And I told him I wasn't interested.
But he had bought the Mangsteer for university
and I built the first one day there.
And then two years later, I'm building a drag car.
Okay. So, wow, covered a lot there.
So what happened to now this small wonder two car?
What, since we talked about that,
where did that end up going?
I don't know.
I was talking about that the other night.
I said he sold it, but we had no where to sell it in.
I don't know what I would do.
Okay.
And then when I got the blue,
I already knew Gene Burr,
the real good friend of mine bought something from him
and I went out there and met him in 70.
And he-
I seen 70?
Yeah.
He's bragging about all this stuff
and about the records and stuff.
And it pissed me off
because he made a comment that no one could do it.
So when I got the car,
within two months, Ricky and I hid all the records.
And this also written, this isn't the small wonder car?
No, no, this isn't the blue.
The blue was-
All right, the door's on the wall back here.
Okay. So, okay.
We just kind of skipped out.
All right. So now we're talking-
I don't know what happened, small wonder.
I know he blew the motor up one time
and I loaned him my motor
and him and I, I'm real hard to get along.
And I got crosswise with him.
We were friends and then
when we went and got that car with him and I ran it.
But why we ran it?
We sat at the IHRA, AHA, and NHRA records all in
within less than a month and a half.
And we had hard time making the car go slow enough
because they ran off of records back then.
Okay. This is the blue car?
All right. So all right.
The Mel Crone car.
All right. Now tell me, let's, let's tell me more.
Okay.
Of what's the spell Mel's last name?
Mel's last name.
Crone, Crone, C-O-R-C-N-E-S-A-C-R-O-N-E, yeah.
C-R-O-N-E, now Crone.
Okay. And this is a blue sedan.
Full top color.
Okay.
And there were things that the viewer used to loop, I think.
I mean, it had everything
just like amputee did.
I'd do orchard year box.
That all disappeared before I got it.
All right. So when you, so you and Mel,
when you, this car was already built.
Yeah. When you're out in Houston and bought by Billy Barrett.
Okay. So is this, so then you came into the picture
to help Mel on this car?
All right. This parts guy had a drag car
and they had it there.
He kept telling me they were gonna get rid of it
when they kept breaking everything.
Right.
And then when it got down to under a thousand,
that's what I'm.
Okay. So you bought the blue, okay.
And then I really hammered them on and got it for 300.
And he told me, he says,
if we find the mag and the carburetors,
we give us the rest of the money.
I said, yeah, but I already knew that them
and they would never get them back.
I didn't have them, but I knew we were riding.
Okay. So now once this car is yours now, continue.
Bull tilt that week, get it running, King.
And they made a comment to me about how hard it was
to make it run.
They'd never gone out of the 12s.
I said, well, Matt is hell.
I said, we'll run 1150s this weekend.
Ricky did.
And then we decided to go after.
So Ricky, I want to hit all the records.
So Ricky drove.
Okay.
All I'd ask for whatever it would be in the old gas.
All right. So, all right.
I was just going to say what class.
So we're talking eye gas and lung gas.
Okay.
All with the NHRA record it disappeared off the wall
or on my wallet shop.
All right.
So you set records in a very short period of time,
you said?
That's the first time I met Barrett too.
And what year are we talking?
73, I think.
And was there a name on this car?
When I had it?
Yeah.
Just had a little chariot.
Just had a little chariot.
Okay.
Did it say anything on it?
Yeah.
I said, Mel Cronin, Gold Leap on the doors
if I remember right.
I had some, the ones I had pictures of that
in Dallas and then running in Houston,
but all that burned up.
So, Ricky was pretty.
So you and Ricky worked,
Ricky drove the small wonder car
and you did the motors on it.
And then later, that car went to Seoul or whatever.
Then the blue car came in,
you bought that, you owned that car,
Ricky drove it and you ran the gas class
and IHRA and IHRA.
Okay.
All right.
And Ricky went to work for Jean Snow
and then I started driving.
Move in.
Okay.
Couldn't get him to go.
Punish it.
I told him the motor in it was someone else's.
I was built.
All that's the next, I asked.
And let's go ahead and finish off the blue car.
Just tell me some more history on the blue car.
See, we ran it till 75, tipped it over.
Ran Bristol, Tennessee with it.
Tulsa, dress also.
You set the record, Tulsa, didn't you?
Hadin in Bristol, Tennessee,
World Fidles in Amarillo.
Man, that bucks a little,
what they call it Texas Modified Weekends
where you had three nights.
One night was in Paris, Texas.
One night was in White House
and Sunday at community was in Hallsville.
The whole weekend, the free-dried race spinner rolls
were paid good money then, $400 a night.
Three races a week and we win.
Three races.
Drivey night, you're in Paris.
Saturday night, you're in White House.
And Sunday afternoon, you're in Hallsville.
Wow.
There's a lot of tow with them.
So this is like 74, 75-ish.
Okay.
That paid good.
All right, a little bit.
So that car unfortunately crashed.
Oh, Wednesday night at Green Valley.
I'm gonna test it in tune tonight, I guess you'd say.
I was messing with the littler motor
and screwed up on the compression on the heads
and let's make one more pass
and the guy broke a motor in front of us.
Rick Dennis got in it just as he went in the lights
about from here, that leg, in that car.
Went through the lights on the top, went up the bank.
High as this rip, landed right on the motor.
I saw shit.
He was in a wreck with an hour.
He'd drive in a dune bug, give him a little bit of dynamite.
Wheel came loose and rolled it, killed him.
And so my wife was out there and everything.
We go down there and Ricky Dennis says to her,
Charlene, I heard her announce,
get your shit off the track.
He came running down there and stopped to go,
it got down and I said, no, no, sorry.
I messed up the car and he goes, no, that's not that.
You got off in the dirt, knew he couldn't see anything.
Well, sorry.
Okay, and then once the blue car got put into the backyard
and then where, well, then where he went?
Chopping a gear, did it and quit.
And then they came out with the compact class.
And when the guys worked for me,
when he was in high school, wanted to run it,
the compact, so we ran it in 77.
It's the only time Berg ever beat me.
I told Paul, that never happened to me.
So this is a new car now, he built a new car.
This is the one you have, the white and black one now?
No.
Oh, this is a different one.
The guy that's been repainted, it's in the temple.
He wasn't gonna paint it back last year,
it's like it was, he asked, I said, yeah, you can.
Okay, so what is that car?
What did it describe this car here,
the Modify Compact car?
Oh, just white.
It was white, okay.
When we had first had Parker, Jones and Sherry on it.
What year was it?
77.
Parker, Jones.
Well, Sherry.
Oh, what year your body was?
It's 60 mama.
And that chrome car was a 60.
All right, so this, I think I've seen a picture of this one.
So this car was white and you ran A?
There's a bomb by it.
Okay, and A Modify Compact, okay.
You set the record was a minimum of 12, 15, I think.
You got points for setting up the world finals.
So we ride off, we're the first one to hit the record.
I think we hit it on 12, 14, or 13.
He got 200 points and we were the first ones
to put it in 11s.
We put it in, I don't know when it was that year.
We put the record in 11s the same year.
Duncan Ness put it 1180, we put it in the 1190s.
Then Parker went to drive with the V8s
and I bought the car from him.
And Johnny Hepers, Uncle Drover.
Okay, so that'll be all right.
Okay, okay.
Parker owned car.
So trying to make him ride too fast.
All right, so Parker sold that car to me.
Oh, sold, okay, the wild, all right.
Really, Dean Bergen didn't know how to pick her gears.
What you needed to run.
It really amazed me when I started messing with that.
None of those people, like the one 14 fourth gears,
they took the two gears and basically cut the center
out of one and switched them.
So the underdrive instead of an overdrive.
It was an 89, it's a stock fourth gear.
Well, it's a 125 when it's a little.
Okay, all right, I'll show you that stuff.
Yeah, let me back up a little bit on that one.
Yeah, I don't want to get in the gears yet.
I don't want to skip this.
We'll get into the farts, we'll cut it off.
Let's continue on.
We're working on all the different race cars.
So we're running the eight modified compact car.
Now, Johnny's driving it still?
No, the car Johnny and I ran was John, it's a car.
Okay, so it was my motor.
All right, so the car that you,
the Parker car that you bought and it was the half,
Johnny, that was just my, when I bought it from him,
it stayed mine and Jerry Hepburn drove it one year
and then Johnny made a deal with me
to run it the next year.
Then we did it one more year and I could got out of it.
So him and I raced two years with his car.
Oh, okay.
All right, so now continue on.
So after that car, then where are we?
What's the next car?
Dr. Hepburn Dragon, no more.
I went off road racing with my kids then.
So this summer, this is 1980.
Yeah, so I raced, my kids are a stadium race till
probably 87, but somewhere in there,
Eric Ballard, I think 85 or probably 86,
he come and him and I got hooked up.
But Bird kept saying stuff that more said
that the more it pissed me off though,
I pushed it to a record, we're gone again on it.
And then Eric still has all that stuff.
He had a compact and a gas car.
All right, all right, I can do it.
Then he had all old record.
Okay.
A compact, B, C compact.
All right, so in 1980 you broke the record,
then Bird got it back and about that time,
Eric Ballard called you, came over, bought motors,
bought the gear, bought the five speed.
Okay, so.
We hit that record a couple of times after.
It was refactored because after two years,
NHRA puts a record back, someone can do it.
And Billy Donovan had my white car, he bought it,
and they come up to a race, a points race.
I said, next month, the end of the month,
the record goes back.
He says it went back now.
Well, I'd let Bursby, a friend of mine,
use the motor, he screwed the valves up,
so it's two in the morning.
We put the motor in the car,
we went out and hit the record.
The end of the end, Udo Johnson,
and Billy Donovan and me on the record.
But it's on the wall, I don't remember where.
Okay, I don't remember the date.
And then the deal came up with Eric Dollard.
So then, when Eric bought all that stuff,
so he took all that stuff back to California.
So then were you guys racing together then?
We ended up being.
Yeah, they'd bring the car to be here or be there.
So this car wasn't legal when he was racing it.
Or is it already Eric's car?
Mm-hmm.
All right, is this the chop top?
No, it's a modified compound, that's where it started.
So it was his car, would your motor in it?
Stansville drove it, Rick Stansville.
And then they set the A record,
put a lot of weight in the car, set the B record.
Put a lot more weight while I made solid bar wheelie bars
and everything with solid steel.
And I think Polts drove it, set that record.
Then I don't know who's dragster they put in,
they set that dragster record.
Yeah, the association was some forms of e-racing
way back in the story too.
Yeah, I saw that in 19-8, but okay, sorry.
Let's finish the drag race then and we'll go into that.
So your connection with Ballard is the motor king,
you were doing the motor work then?
Well, first he just bought what I had,
then Berg said something about aluminum firewall,
that's why he went so fast, it pissed me off.
And Eric said something to me,
I said, you really want to build another motor?
Let's build a littler one, so we did.
And that's the one that shelled everything with it.
Was that still Type 1 transmissions in that car
or was that all a bus transmission?
All of them.
Right.
Well, you're making up your housing,
when I was running the white car,
put a bus in it and it killed modified and I queered.
Yeah, I graced and they instantly went,
Bear called it when they were running Indy,
said they killed modifier, so shit there goes all my cuspers,
I'm quitting too.
And what year is that?
Shoot, 80 proven, so I didn't do much drag racing,
sing local ET guys, then got into the off road again,
it's real heavy.
All right, so all right, so is that pretty much
all of your drag racing then?
Then again with Ricky Johnson Marshall.
All right, so then we have Ricky.
Ricky Marshall, all right.
A lot of Ricky's.
Yeah, all right, all right, so then tell me
about your connection, how you met up with Ricky and...
Well, Ricky had worked for me
when he was in high school in 75.
And then he drag raced, had all kinds of real neat cars,
and he had a red car, Mexican bug,
he was drag racing, breaking stuff,
and I had an engine transmission while part of a motor,
and a friend of mine's car and human, I got crosswise.
And Ricky broke, so I took the bus transmission
and false axles and stuff, loaned him to Ricky.
Then I go to one of the drag races,
and my name's on the car, so that's it, started that.
I don't know when that was, early 90s, 91,
I don't know, 92.
So now, you gave him some parts then, or you?
Yeah.
Well, he had to buy them all.
Yeah, yeah.
And the motor kept getting from a two-barrel to 2110.
He still got that car today, right?
Same car, yeah.
It's still in one great,
keeps such good care of his cars, man.
I do it when they say something couldn't be done,
I don't know, I don't know,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
I do it when they say something couldn't be done,
I wanted to do it, I try it.
We had a throttle stop on the car,
they said you couldn't do it with stick-shift car,
and I said, Ricky, you buy these parts,
we'll make it, we did it,
and that's how he won the two classes,
the two deals at the buggy in that time,
with one car.
Now all this time that you were drag racing,
do you have a dyno?
Yeah, I have, yeah.
You do have a dyno?
Yeah, I have two of them, I'm used to them in years.
But you were obviously in the 70s
when you were running in line if I come back?
That and the off-road,
I spent so much time on the dyno where the off-road,
it was unbelievable.
Week at a time, changing,
had two motors, chain shifting,
just keep that head ahead.
So at that time,
tell me about cylinder heads,
what were you using for cylinder heads?
The first heads was really interesting,
Joe Mondello, I bought three sets of heads for him for $125,
and that's the heads that Ricky Johnson
then ran in the leavens all the time with,
and the heads were $130 a set,
no mannables.
No welding, no welding.
Then, boom, I started that with,
what I call the ones I got from my Mattel heads,
heated them with DevCon,
and I started welding on them,
sawing the pins in the strips
because I didn't know what to do for rod,
and finally figured it wasn't as tricky
as everyone thought it would be.
It's how you heat them to weld them.
Using the fins for material.
I did the bronze seats way, way back too
because Porsche had them,
that's where I got that, bro.
But there was how the seats fall out.
And what other,
so you, for those,
these motors were all 88, 89 motors,
all slipper skirt stuff.
Okay.
The plane bearing cranks after the rollers.
One roller, right, on Ricky's.
Right.
Well guys, that was the first episode
of two episodes for the Lyle Chair interview
by Dean Kirsten in August of 2012.
So the next one will be out next week, guys.
I hope you guys appreciated this
and leaves you wanting more.
There's lots more to come.
Who influenced him in racing,
transaxle stuff he worked on.
I mean a lot of really cool stuff
we find out that Lyle Cherry did
that maybe it's just stuff
that's part of the conversation.
So I know you guys will dig it.
Appreciate you guys for doing that.
By the way, one crazy weekend.
Registration is open.
So go reserve your spaces today.
Get that all situated
because before you know it,
October will be here.
So until next week, guys,
later.
See you guys next week.
About this episode
Dean Kirsten and Lyle Cherry trade long-form stories recorded in Texas in 2012, later published in Hot VW magazine (Jan 2013). The conversation covers Cherry’s path from early Southern California hot-rodding and self-taught engine work to professional training in Porsche/VW, then into building and running his own VW transmission shop. Big highlights include his transmission innovations—especially unique main-shaft gear development—plus drag-racing exploits with figures like Ricky Johnson and Mel Crone, record-chasing across multiple classes, and the dyno/engine-head experiments that powered his results.
Original notes
One of my favorite parts of doing this podcast is preserving the history of the Volkswagen scene—and sometimes, that history shows up in ways you don't expect.
While catching up with my friend Dean Kirsten, I was blown away to learn he had a collection of long-form digital interviews he recorded back in the early 2000s for Hot VWs Magazine. These weren't just quick quotes for print—they were deep, unfiltered conversations with some of the most influential figures in the VW world.
What you're about to hear is Part One of a two-part series from one of those interviews—originally conducted for Lyle Cherry's feature article in the January 2013 issue of Hot VWs.
And let me tell you—this is where long-form really shines.
In a magazine, you're limited by page space and word count. But in a conversation like this, you get the full story—the details, the personality, the behind-the-scenes moments that never make it into print.
Lyle Cherry was a true force in Volkswagen drag racing for over 40 years, representing Richland Hills, Texas, and a whole crew of racers who were pushing the limits of performance. The Texas scene wasn't just competitive—it was innovative. These guys were building fast cars and forcing the West Coast to step up their game.
So as you listen, pay attention. You'll hear the roots of a lot of the technology and development that shaped VW drag racing—and a lot of it came straight out of Texas.
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