Lethalchem
Never heard of him. Do you know Mr. Henley? He was my high school band teacher. It would be meaningful if I found out he was involved in import racing too! I wouldn't have seen that one coming!
Who is Bob Norwood?
BobNorwood has 137 listings in the Guinness Book of Automotive World Records. Creative thinking and technical insight have led to his many innovative developments in the areas of supercar and high-performance automotive design.
Norwood founded Norwood Autocraft in Dallas, Texas, during the late seventies. The initial focus of the business was vintage Ferrari restoration and service. Norwood's first cars were a Ferrari 330 2+2 road car and a Boano Ferrari club racer. Focus shifted to full car construction of performance automobiles, including racing cars, in later years.
Concentrating initially on Ferraris, Norwood built a Ferrari V-12, Ferrari speed record cars and authentic Ferrari P-4 replicas. The first Ferrari replica was a 59/TR (Testarossa) built in 1981. Creation of four replicas began the same year. The year 1985 brought about the 1967 330/P4 replica, the vehicle that captured the 1967 Manufacturers' Championship for Ferrari. Norwood is still manufacturing these replicas today. Also in 1985, Norwood built a 83/308 Ferrari, the first with programmable fuel injection that competed on the Bonneville Salt Flats setting the F-GT and F-Modified class speed records at 168 mph and 170 mph. Those records still stand. During 1988 Norwood built a Ferrari GTO to Bonneville race specs and ran it at 267 mph, a record that still stands as the fastest Ferrari in the world. Ferrari GTO V-8's and V12's are still current projects. Norwood built his favorite type of of runner - a nearly stock intercooled twin turbo Ferrari Testarossa that could top out at 210 mph. The car won the Road & Track Shootout that year. Norwood is still manufacturing the Testarossa with the most recent test obtaining over 1000 hp at the rear wheels of a street car.
Norwood has turned his own racing career into a racing future for race teams. Currently, Norwood Autocraft builds race and street motors for several teams. He has spent long hours turning empty frames into well constructed racing machines. Fuel injection and engine management continue to keep Norwood on the leading edge of technology.
Norwood's passion for automobiles started at a young age. Bob Norwood began his racing career at age 13, driving a 1946 Ford Coupe, in Kansas where he competed in his first drag race. He continued drag racing while in high school, driving a six cylinder GMC G-Gas Coupe and later an A-Sports Corvette. After graduation Anderson Motors, a Chrysler dealer, sponsored Norwood requiring him to "get rid of the Corvette." Instead, they provided an altered wheel base funny car, an AFX Hemi Plymouth, following with three Hahn SS/DA Hemi-Cuda's. In 1971 he raced superstocks in a Hemi-Cuda reached number two in the world A/FC point standings. Norwood raced an AA/FC with Dale Armstrong and eventually moved to race the Lone Star Flyer, a BB/FC car.
Cam AM racing began in 1982 for Norwood with the purchase of the 1979 Citi-Corp Championship car from Carl Hass. He ran SCCA A-Sports with driver Phil Compton and continued on in 1983 with the addition of a second Lola 333 driven by Mike Rowe.
Partnered with Don Walker late in 1983, Norwood bought Team VDS and won Cam AM in 1984. A new team formed in 1985 with March Cam AM cars and drivers Price Cobb and Jim Crawford. Unfortunately, Cam Am died about that time.
Needing a place to race, Norwood decided upon Indy. His crew finished 4th, at the Long Beach Grand Prix, was DNF at Phoenix and finished 16th at the 1985 Indy 500. Crawford drove all races.
He has successfully raced alcohol and nitro funny dragsters, raced motorcycles, raced Cam AM, raced and researched the outer limits of nitrous and oxygen as super oxidizers. The salt flats of Bonneville, Utah gave Norwood three records, two that he still owns, despite eleven years and numerous attempts to break them. Norwood runs Bonneville every year possible. In 1992, Oldsmobile had Batten and Norwood fabricate and test their Aerotech racing cars to set forty-seven new endurance records with the new Aurora engines. Many of the drivers were from the Norwood Autocraft organization.
You will see a lot of Ferraris at Norwood's. When it comes to service, Norwood Autocraft vastly outperforms the everyday Ferrari dealer. Norwood is a legendary figure - to his car-loving Edge-seeking customers who like to pay the high price for high performance. Many of these clients have been with him for years.
Norwood has expanded to other types of marquee's. This includes the creation of Porsche Club racers and an all-wheel drive Porsche C-4 and Porsche racing engines, as well as applying the dual-fuel concept of turbo-charging to an Aura NSX. Norwood has expanded his research and development contracts and has become a noted expert witness for legal testimony.
Norwood's $500,000 Porsche creation made its appearance in 1995 - the racer DOOM. It was a supercar with ultra-high-tech fabrication utilizing components, of Indy cars and other radical cars put to use in a new way. The 3.6 supercharged engine designed to last 24 minutes did the job beating every competitor. The record remains unbroken. DOOM, named after the biggest selling computer game of all time that helped to finance it, disappeared on July 31, 1995 - stolen from outside Norwood's fabricating shop and not seen since.
Norwood has continued his new developments in 1997. He has built two new 4 cylinder Porsche 968 turbo DOOM cars. He is also continuing to press for as much horsepower from the Testarossa as possible. Norwood filed a patent on a new turbocharger turbine upgrade. He also continues to manufacture his high performance replica cars and now has scratch motors that feature a V-12 with either 777 or 1000 cubic inches and 302 cubic inch V-12's for P-4's and GTO's.
You can most likely find him on the phone or at the dyno, or in the shop working on a pet project staying busy on the leading edge of technology.
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Is it even possible? Can somebody tell me?
