der Bayerische September/October 2020 - 18

Traditions
TEXT AND
PHOTOS
BY

Raine Mantysalo
George Milonogiannis

The Story of A Red 2002: Part 1

"Honey, You See This Car...
It's Mine."

Those words are part of several interesting stories yet to be told about one red 2002.
It had once been transformed into a track car, then sold three times, perhaps left
forgotten for a while, and then in caring hands it was given a second chance to live.
The story begins with our very own
dB production manager and layout
person, Raine Mantysalo.

recently received an email from the
person who purchased my 1976
2002 in 1989. The email was from
George Milonogiannis who now lives
in Greece. I was very surprised to see
the email and who it was from. We
had not been in contact since the
sale, at a time when I still lived in
Kensington, Maryland. Adding to the
surprise, having just recently gone
through some old file folders, I found
it a rather odd coincidence that I had
apparently left the car's bill of sale on
top of the file cabinet. (Imagine hearing Twilight Zone sound effects here.)
The email immediately brought

back some great memories of the car
that I had once owned. George was
asking me whether I knew anything of
its current whereabouts since he
himself had sold it soon after buying
it from me. Mind you that I had
sold the car 31 years ago. I vaguely
remembered hearing something
about rust and frozen brakes
whenever I had heard about the car
afterwards.
Let's turn the clock back to the
beginning of the story of this red
2002.
In the late 80s, I was driving a
modified Henna Red 320, without the
"i", since the stock injection had been
removed and replaced with sidedraft
Webers. I had been participating in
driving schools with the 320 at

Summit Point Motorsports Park and
a couple of times at Mosport Park, in
Canada. Having previously owned a
1976 2002, I lusted for one now to
use as a track car. I sold the 320
(with no "i") and bought the red 1976
2002, covered in this series of articles, to replace it in Rockville,
Maryland. The car had air conditioning and a recent Maaco paint job that
looked amazingly good.
Well, then it needed to be
prepped for the track. At Quality Car
Services (QCS) in Rockville, who had
previously worked on the engine for
my 320, the old engine of the 2002
came out and a "left-over" GT3-classification block was readied for the
job. It had no provisions for the rare
AC in the 2002, but who needs AC on

the track anyway, I was told. A 304degree Schrick camshaft and
45DCOE Webers were installed along
with Stahl headers and a Piranha
ignition.
At the same time, my brother's
early-model 2002 in Canada had
caught fire and became a source for
parts. Via a detour on our way to
Lime Rock to watch races, John
Hartge and I picked up the unfortunate car's close-ratio five-speed
transmission and some other parts.
I tracked the 2002 several times,
but for some reason we never managed to sort out the suspension.
It was mean under power. I remember Terry Luxford's (R.I.P., Terry)
smile when I shifted at 7,000 RPMs
by pit-out on the front straightaway.

The car looked rather stock except for the lowered stance. The aftermarket Kamei spoiler came in black but was later painted red by John Estep in Broadway, VA.

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