The Story of The Whittington Brothers 

Man, their story really needs to be a movie lol

This is the kind of stuff you can't find anywhere else on RU-vid. Thanks VINwiki!

Old racing stories are the best. Thanks for coming by to tell this one John!

"they were great drivers, so they bought road atlanta" Fucking legends

It is stories like this that make me so excited to see Netflix and Amazon cranking out movies. The more production houses we have working on stuff, the more things like this can actually get made.

What...the...hell. This has to be the craziest story ever put on this channel! Incredible!

why hasn't anyone made a movie about these guys?!?!?! the story has got literally everything you could want in a movie lol

"Decided to become sports car racers, because why not?"

The old important export business pays well. That hole, we did the same thing qualifying for the Daytona 500. I won’t say the team because they are big. But back in the day when you could qualify on a different motor. Well we had it setup so nitrous sprayed out of a pop rivet on the fire wall right into the air cleaner. We sat on the pole with that setup.

This is why I love VinWiki, cause I can get home from work, kick back, crack open a cold one, and listen to some great stories.

You forgot the story about Le Mans ‘79 when their k3 kept throwing drive belts, Ludwig stuck out at mulsanne corner was sent some “sandwiches” which had the drive belts hidden in the bag. Klaus intern rigged the belt and limped it back to the pits where it was properly fixed... classic

Those were the days! Still remember when they flew two of their P51 Mustangs over Donnybrooke (now Brainerd), put on a low level acrobatic show and then landed on the main straight. We were there testing and the paddock ran to the fence because it was one of those WTF moments. The majority of racers then already knew they were flying pot. Heck, John Paul Sr. listed his occupation on his registration as "exotic plant importer"

Btw.. I like this guy, another great story teller!

I have never heard of John Ficarra before in my life but after this single 10 minute RU-vid video I am planning to follow this guy forever. Awesome friggin' interview. I mean, DAMN! Beautifully told John!!

Another great morning of content from the only channel where I find myself watching videos all the way through. This guy is good.

This guy knows how to tell a story. One of the better people on here.

Never knew this one glad to hear such a cool story

these are the type of videos that pop up in your home feed, and you keep clicking them and passing hella time

This story explains why I had to work so hard to be anywhere near competitive in the early '70s IMSA GT races.

1.Klaus Ludwig's a legend in Europe,who's won touring cars,as well as LeMans twice.2.This was an era that IMSA may want to forget.The Whittingtons,along with the John Pauls,were in jail during this time.

I can't help but imagine this as a 'drunk history' episode...

I come back to watch this video at least once a month. Legendary

Holy cow!!! I don't believe my ears but those guys are my damn heros lol. This is the best story that I have ever heard of. Vinwiki keep the good stories coming and man do I love this channel.

Best story yet

I want more stories from this guy

Amazing channel, why has it taken so long for me to find this place?!

This guy just seems legendary. Can't wait for more of his.

That is a movie I would love to see!!!

Awesome story. Btw though, the 935 was not the 'last production car to win LeMans'. I seem to remember the entire GT1 era... especially the McLaren F1.

6 dislike. Friggin Jag owners. Seriously, these stories are gold value. Thank you to all for sharing.

Next you should tell the story of John Paul Sr. & John Paul Jr.

I have watched this episode more times than i count!!!! By far my favorite story!

Am i the only one imagining a movie about the Whittington Brothers directed by Guy Ritchie?

You guys need more of this upstanding gentleman telling crazy stories.

Those were the days! Road Atlanta with The Wittington Brothers, Danny "On-The-Gas" Ongais, Hurly Haywood, Al Holbert, Peter Greg, David Hobbs, Klaus Ludwig ....you could just go on and on and on. All of them, great drivers.

Best VINwiki video I have watched and I have watched almost all of them.

This story needs to be expanded. Reminds me of the Wolf of Wall Street or something crazy like that. WE DEFINITELY A MOVIE.

I've watched this upload about twenty times and every time I just want to crack a can of beer and listen too this dude.

Wow. I would love to see this in the big screen. It's like Blow but with racecars.

This was amazing. 😂

Another chapter I'm sure that IMSA would like to forget is Andy Evans.He owned IMSA for a while,and fixed the 1997 race so that he would win it.

I would love to hear some stories from people who knew Smokey Yunick back in the day.

I saw that exact car at the Petersen Automotive Museum when I was in California 2 weeks ago! I just thought it was a good looking Le Mans Porsche but never thought it had history like that! Awesome vid!

Those back wheels at 3:06 are doing something mighty to my soul

This guy, always beer in hand, always with the best stories !

This guy is my second favorite behind rabbit. These two are the best

This channel has the best stories on RU-vid hands down

WOW!!! I feel like John just handed me the keys! What a story!!

This is such a great story, i've listened to it 10 times now

I’ve gotten up close to the P-63F they flew, you can still see it flying around at airshows around Houston Texas, very cool aircraft and a one of a kind. Their aircraft collection was insane with four P-51s (including a rare but insanely fast H model and the legendary P-51 Precious Metal), two F8Fs (the best prop fighters ever made), and two P-63 Kingcobras (both of which still fly).

I remember Don doing an excellent job designing the racing semi trailer that two cars could be driven in, automatically lift up and two more could be loaded in. It was powered by multiple wenches with separate control switches.

The Whittington Bros. sound like the literal definition of not giving a shit.

This one crazy ass story!!!! I love it

Those stories, which I’ve heard since the early 80’s is what makes the brothers legendary!

One of the greatest stories ever told. Hats off to you John. And the 935 was the greatest works of art to come out of Stuttgart.

Last production based car to win was the McLaren F1 GTR in 1995

Just when you thought the world of sports car racing was perfectly legitimate...no wait.

This is hands down one of the most interesting and well told stories I've heard in quite some time. Thank you John and VINwiki!

This was easily one of the best stories told here yet. Simply awesome.

Still one of my best race care stories. I wish I was there to see it all!

Keep John Ficarra coming back!!

John Ficarra is an amazing storyteller. I knew a little about the Whittington Brothers....but this stuff is incredible.

he was pretty spot on; about Road Atlanta and the Whittingtons, but failed to mention Randy Lanier, T-bird Swap shops, JLP Racing, Peter Gregg 59 etc as a lot of them, were into "Transportation" too. Camel Gt & Winston for one year, but great racing! and a good story too; painted with a pretty broad brush . . .

This is awesome! I raced with the Whittingtons youngest son in karting a few years ago! Great story, guys are Crazy!

We NEED the Whittington brothers on VINwiki ASAP!

One of their Porsches was discovered in an old aircraft hangar in South Florida. It ran for the first time in decades at the historic 24 at Daytona in 2020.

This is the first VINwiki segment I ever watched and it hooked me immediately. I had to come back a year later and watch it again. Awesome story and they do need to make a movie about them.

I think Ficarra is remembering Indy 1982 when Cogan, middle of the starting line sent his car careening into Andretti and Foyt less than a hundred yards before the green flag dropped, lap one.

Now there should be an version of the IMSA acronym for trust funds rather than drugs. Too early for me to think of one.

Yeah, the Whittingtons, they always had the coolest planes over in their hanged. My father and I jumped the fence to go take a closeup look at a P38 Lightning they had there one night.

More of this, please. Keep up the good work finding these people.

I actually knew Don and Bill Whittington. Your story is 100% accurate. I could tell you some other wild things that is so crazy people think it's BS.

Awesome story! Great channel

This channel never fails and bringing great stories to the public cant get enough of this stuff THANK U VINWIKI

Saw one of the Whittington brothers at Sebring , vintage racing a Jagermeister 935.

VinWiki New Video = Excitement.

I'm sure that this is an episode of its history that IMSA would rather not talk about.

One of the craziest, coolest stories I've heard in a while. Great video!

Wow, VIN Wiki!! You guys are finally getting up there.Been subscribed since the Mclaren maintenance video and loving every moment since!!

RIP Bill Whittington. For those who didn't know, he was killed in a plane crash near Winslow, AZ on 4/23/2021. Thanks for the amazing stories Bill and of course John for sharing them.

Chip Ganassi has sadly confirmed that Bill Whittingdon died on 23 April this year in a plane crash.

Yup. Totally deserves a movie.

Between these guys and John Paul, Jr. and Sr. Good times!

Excellent content!

What's your choice of beverage? I've seen you hold that can before

This is the best story ever! I thought the exotic car rental guy had good stories. This should be a movie.

I keep on coming back to this story, it's so good!

Love you John.

1:09 imagine seeing that on a drive

Crazy to see this mini-documentary. Great job! I thought I'd add more details to this crazy story that I experienced as a teenager working for Don Whittington @ World Jet, Inc. in 1988. I was a teenager and worked for Don @ World Jet, Inc. in 1988. He had given me a job after I rode my BMX bike around FXE perimeter applying at every private aviation firm to refuel and handle a/c. After having rode my bike around the FXE perimeter the second time and applying @ World Jet a second time in a week, Don appreciated my tenacity and hired me. I couldn't believe it. I was working at perhaps the largest FBO on FXE(took the entire NE corner of the FXE property). He had a few old warbirds. A Grumman F5F Bearcat that he used to buzz the World Jet hangars at low altitude after take-off, a beautiful F-4U Corsair and was planning to build a P-51 Precious Metal(N6WJ) for the upcoming race in Reno later in September. After I was there a few months refueling, moving and washing a/c he asked if had me assist in restoring a Fairchild C-123K. He showed me how to use a sand blaster, handed me a respirator, a set of coveralls and directed me to climb into the tail section to blast the primer/paint from the inside. It was a hot summer June day in Ft. Lauderdale so you can imagine how comfortable that wasn't. After a few days doing that he had me to get to work on Precious Metal(N6WJ), the P-51 mentioned above. I couldn't believe it. I was going to work on building a P-51 from the airframe up for Reno. After a brief tutorial on shaping and buffing sheet metal, I got to work shaping the sheet metal and after it was mounted to airframe I had to buff until she was a shiny beautiful chrome. A Counter Rotating Rolls Royce Griffon engine was mounted along with custom canopy he had designed. He was a great pilot and loved speed. The sounds of those old warbirds were amazing. In addition to his personal toys above I would also handle a few a/c owned by famous people. A Gulfstream 3(N768J) owned by Julio Iglesias, a King Air owned by Oral Roberts and a couple other multi-engines for some 80s big hair bands. Just before the 4th of July we were installing a navigation system in the G3 similar to what is on the back seat commercial a/c these days, perhaps 1st of it's kind. I was offered to participate in a test flight to Orlando to make sure it worked for an upcoming flight that would host Julio and Elizabeth Taylor. Julio was hosting Liz Taylor at his Miami residence for the 4th of July Weekend. Once I found this out I offered to stay late at the end of a week. I had already put over 60 hours in and thought I could push it to 80 and get 40 hours of time and a half. As a teenager this would be huge money and most I had ever mad by that age. Unfortunately, I passed out late in the FBO and woke up to the plane in front thinking I had missed them. They actually flew to Tamiami dropped them off and the pilot flew plane back to FXE. Oh well, I missed Julio and Liz but at least I'd get my big payday w/40h of time and a half, I thought. However, When I got my check I was only paid 80 hours at regular hourly rate(I was pissed, he had stiffed me ~$1300, even though he had these million dollar warbirds and perhaps the largest FBO at FXE). I went to his office upstairs and told him he owed me time and a half for the 40 hours over. He look at me and said "I don't pay time and a half". Knowing he had just completed his stint in prison after pleading guilty for charges related to his trafficking, I threatened to contact the Labor Bureau. He calmly opened his 3-ring check binder, wrote me a check and said "Son, you've been a great employee but you now have to go". So I took my check, told him whatever and walked out the door. It was so crazy to work there and I'm happy I did because it has provided me a great story to share over a beer through the years. In closing, I never got the chance to see Precious Metal race because of the overtime pay issue. At Reno he flew Precious Metal to the highest qualifying speed at the time (453mph), as was mentioned in the video and would later have to land her on the belly due to engine failure. And now in the words of the great Paul Harvey, "That's the rest of the story"

How is this not a movie this would be epic

I generally thought this video interesting but having been a crew member of this racing team during part of the 1978 as well as the 1979 and 1980 seasons I must note that some elements of this account are fictional. I will point out two of them here: First, unless it happened sometime after I left the team in May 1980, we never used nitrous oxide injection on the these 935s. I do recall that we once used water injection, rerouting a line from the windshield washer fluid reservoir, to spray a mist into the engine air cooling fan, but this was not an infraction of IMSA rules. Otherwise, we did use technology extensively to improve the original Porsche design, for example, we replaced all of the water and oil cooling lines with aircraft quality steel braid covered hoses and aircraft-type quick disconnect fittings. This allowed us to replace a complete engine and transmission assembly in about twenty minutes during a race! Secondly, the story about the team car transport truck being publically inaccessible because it was full of contraband is totally false. That carrier (we only had one) was accessible at every race track and its interior, usually carrying three to four vehicles, spare parts, tools etc., was seen by thousands of fans.

This is one of the best stories yet, sorry Ed :P

One of the best stories on this channel

This may be the best vinwiki ever. This needs more views

3:09 last street-based production car to win Le Mans - McLaren F1 ring any bells bro..?

The golden era of racing as far as I am concerned as there was more various class of racing. Too many have gone due to the increasingly high cost when manufacturers get involved.

This is the kind of show that needs to be on Velocity. Great story and delivery.

Your uploads are absolutely excellent....thanks for the info.

God damn it, every time you watch a VINWiki video you go and think, damn, no way they can top that story, next video, boom, even crazier story