Originally appeared in the October 1996 issue of
Car Audio & Electronics magazine.
Reprinted with permission.
© All rights reserved.
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Originally appeared in the October 1996 issue of Reprinted with permission. © All rights reserved. |
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In the relatively short history of car audio competition, there have been a
handful of vehicles that are regarded with awe. They were the first great
champions, the innovators, and now the legends. If there was a Car Audio Hall of
Fame, they would be in it.
Whatever happened to the great vehicles that rocked the car audio world? It's a question often asked by audio enthusiasts. Are those cars still competing, or are they in a museum somewhere? Were they retired to stud like champion racehorses, or turned into salad bars in theme restaurants? |
One of the first and most famous of all the great mobile sound machines is now stored in an Arizona airplane hangar. Wayne Harris' Terminator Hearse rumbled onto the car audio scene back in 1985. The 8,000-pound 1960 Cadillac hearse packed 4,280 watts (RMS) of power and spawned dozens of imitators. It also launched the successful career of its owner.
"I would never have been noticed if not for that car," said Harris, who is now director of research and development for Rockford Fosgate. "The Terminator Hearse is part of my life. I'd never consider selling it. That would be like selling my own kid, if I had a kid."
Harris said the Terminator was a real trendsetter, introducing several new technological concepts to car audio. "It was the first car to have stiffening capacitors, bus bars, dual alternators, on-board video – lots of stuff," he said. "It was way ahead of its time."
Besides its thunderous sound system (23 speakers and seven amplifiers), the Terminator also had an array of gizmos that are considered high tech even by today's standards. There's a rear-view camera, an Apple computer system to monitor the car's electronic functions, an ETAK navigation system, and a TV mounted in the center console. An electronic message board inside the windshield scrolls messages about the car. It has a security system, radar detector, VCR, and even a CD player, which was considered rare in 1985.
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A young Wayne Harris really getting into his work inside the enclosures for the Terminator's gigantic 24-inch subwoofers. |
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Harris designed the interior of the Terminator to resemble a jet aircraft. It has various LED displays, a steering wheel from a Beechcraft airplane, and Recaro seats. |
The Terminator Hearse cut a wide path on the sound-off scene, which was in its infancy in 1985. Harris said he won $500 to $750 just about every weekend in 1985 and '86. He even won a Chevy S10 pickup as first prize at a Texas event.
He retired the Terminator from competition in December of '86 when he was hired by Orion, but he continued to show the vehicle at car shows until 1993. The last public appearance by the Terminator was at the Phoenix World of Wheels show in January 1993.
"I won a lot of money with that car, but not enough to pay for the system," Harris explained. "But I never did it for the money anyway. My goal was to have the baddest ride on the street. It was a system designed for cruising.
"I could play it at 140 decibels for eight hours with the motor running," he recalled. "Today, systems are built so they can hit a high SPL for a brief instant at a very narrow frequency. I wanted my car to sound like a rock concert – and it did."
In 1988, another superstar car was introduced to the car audio world. The 1986 Buick Grand National (Installations April '89 and August '92) built by SpeakerWorks in Orange, California (and later sold to Richard Clark), is believed to be the only vehicle ever to retire undefeated from the pro division of the national sound-off circuit.
The bad black Buick won the Alpine Car Audio Nationals II Pro Unlimited (751 watts and up) division in '88, and IASCA's Pro unlimited title in '89, '90, and '91 before being retired by Clark.
"It's the winningest car of all time in the Pro category," said Clark, who keeps the car in storage in North Carolina. "It was totally undefeated, and its design had a big impact on the way things are done today."
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The SpeakerWorks Buick was "the winningest car" in IASCA's Pro division, according to Richard Clark. The system featured two 15-inch subwoofers behind the rear seat, and a 12-inch sub in each rear side panel. |
According to Eric Holdaway, whose family owns SpeakerWorks and designed the original system, the speaker locations in the Buick were a pioneering concept.
"People thought we were nuts to put speakers in the kick panels," said Holdaway. "Our goal was to maximize the pathlengths for better imaging and staging. It was a groundbreaking approach that most top installers are following today."
The all-stealth Buick, equipped with only six speakers and nearly 5,000 watts of power, won four national titles and consistently hit 140+ dB. "I won $60,000 in prize money in one year with that car," said Clark.
Like a Kentucky thoroughbred, the famous Buick Grand National sired an offspring that later achieved its own measure of fame. Harry Kimura's 1988 Acura Legend (Installations, November '88) became legendary when it won four IASCA Amateur-class national titles in five years and the Georgia Masters best-of-show award in '93.
Kimura bought the Acura new in '88, just as the SpeakerWorks Buick was achieving national fame. Impressed by the Buick, Kimura asked SpeakerWorks to install a competition system in his car. Using techniques pioneered in the Buick Grand National, the Holdaways transformed Kimura's Acura into one of the top consumer cars in America.
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Harry Kimura's '88 Acura Legend was one of the first cars to use pro-audio signal processors and kick-panel speakers. |
After seven years of car audio competition, Kimura sold the car in 1995 to USD Audio, makers of the horns used in the award-winning Acura. USD, which is also owned by the Holdaways, uses it as a demo vehicle for trade shows.
"Yeah, it was kinda hard to sell it. I really liked that car. But it was time to move on to something else," said Kimura. He is now awaiting the completion of a new competition sound system in a 1987 Buick Grand National. The installer? SpeakerWorks, of course.
The Alpine Car Audio Nationals II in 1988 will be remembered as a benchmark event in the history of car audio competition. It was one of the first heavily publicized national soundoffs and featured three of the most famous vehicles ever to compete: the famous SpeakerWorks Buick, Kimura's Acura, and the car known as "Lil Yellow," Richie Inferrera's 1988 Honda CRX Si (Installations, April '89).
"It's a special car, one that made history," said Inferrera of his Honda. "The imaging in that car is outstanding. And it was one of the first totally stealth installations. I've helped people all over the world design systems for CRXs based on that car."
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Richie Inferrera's "Lil' Yellow" Honda CRX featured (clockwise from left) component speakers in each door, signal processors and a mobile phone in a stock storage compartment behind the seat, and four 10-inch subwoofers in the spare-tire compartment. |
The limited confines of the Honda CRX didn't limit the performance Inferrera was able to achieve. The system includes nine speakers (four 10-inch subwoofers and five two-way speakers), a pair of four-channel amps, a crossover, a parametric equalizer, and an Alpine CD player, which can be hidden by a motorized panel. There's also a telephone and a security system. The cigarette lighter is actually the control for the center-channel gain.
Inferrera's CRX is now the property of a/d/s, the company that manufactured the amps and speakers for Lil Yellow's stellar system. "I was sad to see it go," said Inferrera, "but a/d/s really wanted it for a test car. It still has the original woofers and amps in it."
Over the past 10 years, vans have often been the vehicle of choice for creating mammoth audio systems. Vans naturally have more room than cars for audio equipment, and they provide more space for creative woofer enclosures and elaborate motorized parts. Many awesome vans have competed for honors in the past decade, but few – if any – could match the prototype competition van: Rocket Science.
Tommy Clark's Ford Econoline van was dubbed "Rocket Science" when it appeared in Car Audio in December 1989 (Installations). It got the name because of its complex amp rack and subwoofer chamber, which together resemble a spacecraft docked with a mother ship. With the flip of a switch, a hexagonal pedestal with six Precision Power 2050 amps tilts back ward out of the van's rear doors. A second switch unfolds the amp rack like the petals of a flower, revealing the detailed wiring within.
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Tommy Clark's "Rocket Science" van got its name because of the space-age look of the amp rack and subwoofer chamber. The rack tilts out of the back of the van and six PPI amps unfold from it like the petals of a flower. |
The innovative system, which cost $45,000 to build, captured the IASCA 501-1,000-watts Amateur class three consecutive years, 1989-1991. According to Alan Wenzel of JL Audio, Rocket Science was far more than a mere mechanical marvel.
"It was a massive system, but it had great sound quality. Visually it was very different, and it made great use of motorization, but it was not just a lot of bells and whistles. It set some of the highest sound-quality scores in IASCA history," noted Wenzel.
Clark, who lives in Florida, still drives the vehicle every day and has racked up more than 300,000 miles in the superstar van. Other than a few minor changes, the van and system are exactly as they were in the early '90s.
"All the motorized parts still work perfectly, and I still enjoy driving it," said Clark. "After we won the third IASCA championship in 1991, I decided to quit competing. Like the Chicago Bulls, we had a threepeat. I wanted to go out a winner, and we did."
While Clark's van is notable for its mechanization, David "Fishman" Rivera is remembered for creating one of the most whimsical vehicles in car audio history. Rivera's 1989 Toyota Corolla (Installations, February '92), which took first place in the 1991 IASCA Finals in the Pro 101-205- watts class, had an aquarium in the back seat. Thus, it became known as the "Fishtank Toyota."
"That car was my teacher," said Rivera, who recently started his own company, Fishman Audio. "I knew nothing [about car audio installation] when I started working on that car. A year and a half later, I took first place at IASCA. I owe my career to that car."
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David Rivera became known as "the Fishman" after he showed up at the 1991 IASCA Finals (and won his class) with an '89 Toyota Corolla that had an aquarium in the back seat. The car also featured equalizers in the rear-seat backs and four subwoofers in the trunk floor. |
In addition to marine life, Rivera's car also had a killer audio system and utilized several innovative installation techniques. The back seat folded down by remote control to reveal not only the fishtank, but AudioControl equalizers embedded in the seat backs. The Clarion head unit and digital signal processor were retractable into the dash, with a Plexiglas cover to protect them. And the trunk – despite housing four sub-woofers, two amps, and fuse blocks – remained a usable storage space.
Rivera stopped competing with the Corolla in 1994. Less than two years later, it was hit by thieves and was stripped of most of its stereo system. He later sold the gutted car for $1,000. At the peak of its success, he estimates the Fishtank Toyota was worth $35,000.
"It broke my heart to sell it," the Fishman admitted. "I literally had tears in my eyes. I still would see it on the streets from time to time and I'd always say, "There goes the legend."
In the world of car audio there are only a few true legends. Some of them are still out there, crankin' and kickin'. Others have been dismantled, their carcasses rusting in junkyards. A few, like the Terminator Hearse, are lurking in the shadows, waiting to re-emerge and kick butt.
"I still see it every week," said Harris of his killer hearse. "It's on a trickle charger to keep the batteries up, and I start it up occasionally.
"It's street legal," he added. "Who knows? Maybe I'll bring it out for a competition sometime soon."
The legend lives!
