On August 6th, 1976 at the age of 14 Tony and his family moved to Gemrany and by December Tony and his father had found a bodyshell for yet another race car project, which was an Opel GT that they later named "Stampeder II".

1977 - While working at a Porsche workshop in the summer of 1977 Roy and Tony did some of the main work on the Opel GT - and it was right there at that workshop, where Tony found a small handbook from the AVD (Automobil Club of Germany) which next to a lot of interesting and useful information also contained the calender for German motorsports.
In the AVD Handbook Tony came across the racedates of HARA (Hanau Auto Racing Association) and two weeks after learning about HARA Tony and Roy where on their way to Erlensee (near Frankfurt) to check out the German drag racing scene.

On arrival in Erlensee Roy and Tony found the HARA racetrack, that was actually the airstrip of an american military airbase called Fliegerhorst.
After meeting many interesting people of the german drag racing scene like the President of the german-american Drag Racing Club H.A.R.A Jerry Lackey, the President of the German Drag Racing Club Hans Kloss and watching some of the earlier german dragracers like Willi Hestermann in his Fiat Topolino "Maffia Mouse" (left), once again plans where made by the Morris family to move and it had to be closer to the racetrack.

In July of 1978 the Morris family including it´s racecar Stampeder II moved to a small town very close to the racetrack in Erlensee and anxioulsy finished building the Opel GT "Stampeder II"

1978 - After Roy and Tony had finished building the Opel FT up to a satisfactory standard in October '78, it was time for testing, but not on a racetrack because the race was cancelled due to rain.
Roy decided to go ahead and test the car on a newly built Autobahn (Highway) the A66 "Hanauer-Kreuz" which was due to open to the public just a few weeks later.

right: Roy testing the car and Tony standing next to the car in the yellow overalls.

1979 - The Opel GT was raced in it's first season by Roy as Tony was only 17 at the time. The car ran low 14´s high 13´s and Tony and Roy where pleased. In the very first season the team was joined by Tony´s friend, Rolf Nohl who later became a drag racer himself

1980 - In 1980 Roy´s creative urge to build a better car once again took over and it was also a good time for Tony to start racing with a tried and tested vehicle Roy thought.

Roy gave Tony the car on the proviso that "you break it! You fix it!" Roy went on to build another car and Tony went on to begin his racing career in Stampeder II.

April 1980 was the the begining of Tony´s racing career.

Tony did not win anything his first racing season, as there was much to learn and he said their was one important thing he learned pretty fast and that was to listen.

The first two years 1979-80 the team raced the car with a 327 small block chevy, a turbo 400 transmission and the rear end of an Opel Diplomat as it was identical to a Corvette rear end.

Roy had worked a lot of magic to make the combination work and it was a one of a kind rear end, it was not fitted with the best ratio (2.8) that was why the car ran in the high 13 second zone.

1981 - Tony and Roy decided to build a bigger engine a 355 small block chevy with 11:1 compression pistons, a bigger cam and better intake.
This combination put them into the 12 second zone.

That year Tony also tried out differant size holley carbs (600cfm - 780cfm) to try and get the best out of the car and it paid off - that year Tony won his first class win in A/ET and finished 3rd in the DVD Club Championship.

And yes a small block chevy fits!

1982 - Early 1982 Roy said he thought it would be better if the team did not change anything on the car, seeing as they had tried many things out the year before and had a good handle on the car. Roy's thought was - if the team left the car as it was they stood
more of a chance, of going some good rounds.

In 1982 the team was joined by another good friend of Tony´s - Lutz Bernhard. This was a great year as Tony finished the season winning three races in Erlensee and his first 1.DVD Club Championship. One of the races Tony won was the Summer Nationals in Fliegerhorst, which at the time was a big event for the racers and it paid well too – 2.200 Deutsch Marks.

1983 - At the begining of the 1983 racing season the team had planed to do an engine rebuild and some upgrades like a race converter, a complete new Corvette centre section with a lock diff and 4:88 gears to try and pick up the ET a little. The engine was rebuilt by a friend.

When the team showed up for the first event on May 21st in Erlensee, it did not take them long to realise they had a problem with the car. During the first pass tons of white smoke was coming out of the exhaust which was motor oil burning in the engine.

When Tony lost first round the team towed the car back to the workshop, which was only around the corner from the track - which was a good thing because they didn´t even have a trailer at the time.

Back at the workshop Tony had the engine out and striped within 1 hour and it "only" took that long because he had to wait for the engine to cool down. Tony discovere that his friend had ordered the wrong piston rings and had obviously installed them without noticing.

However the team got the car back together and that season Tony was runner up in the 1.DVD Club Championship (Deutscher Verein für Drag Racing).

A further highlight in the summer of 1983 was as Tony was invited to participate in a demo show at the Auto & Technic Museum in Sinsheim Germany http://www.technik-museum.de/ .
In Sinsheim Tony met a representative of a company called "Parsget", which is a company specialized in Opel GT Parts. After an interesting conversation and a further meeting, Parsget became Tony´s Sponser in 1984.

1984 - Well before the 1984 race season started, Tony went to work on getting the Opel GT ready for a further season. At that time the drag racing scene in Germany was starting to change noticeably, more shows were starting to happen and further dragstrip opened in Giebelstadt. There where also shows were good money was paid for doing burn-out demonstrations.

Before his last race, Tony made some changes to the transmission and it was at his last race where Tony ran his best time ever with the Opel GT - on his last pass down the track - his ET was a 11.31 But it was not only Tony´s last race it was also the last race held at the american military airbase Fliegerhorst Erlensee.
In 1984 Tony again finished as runner up in the 1.DVD Club Championship and german dragracer Rico Anthes won for the second time running.

Now what happen to the Opel GT "Stampeder II"?

We have seen on some websites that people believe that it's the car german dragracer Rudi Füssel races called"Sweet Little Beast" – but it's not. Tony´s Opel GT ended up in the USA as in the summer of 1985 he sold it to an american soldier, who did actually show up at the Giebelstadt dragstrip with his own engine fitted - after that the car was shiped to the USA never to be seen again.
BODY: 1969 Opel GT complete steel factory body
FRAME: factory floor
MOTOR: 327/355 Small Block Chevy 2.02 Fullie heads Holley intake Holley 650dp
TRANS: Turbo 400 with 3000 stall torque converter
REAR END: 1970 Opel Diplomat B with disc brakes
DIFF: Corvette 4.88 poss/lock
FRONT AXLE: Opel GT with coil overs
RACED: 1979 - 1984
BEST ET: 11:31 @ 120 mph (200km/h)

In the early 1980´s drag racing at Fliegerhorst had become well established and they were getting a good number of spectators. However there was a little criticism about long breaks and there was nothing to entertain or keep the crowds attention, when cars broke or clean- up was warranted.

Roy thought a demo car would be a good answer to that problem and also at that time custom painting in the european Magazine Chrome & Flames was taking off in Germany. Coupled with the fact that car shows and exhibitions paid out handsome appearance money in the off season, it made good sense to build a wheelie car for all these reasons, plus the pleasure of actually achieving THE FULL QUARTER.

Roy built a space frame around an Oldsmobile Toronado 455 c.i. V8 with a front wheel drive unit and shortened drive shafts, which luckily just fitted inside the trunk area of another Opel GT without having to modify the shape of the body apart from the wheel arches.

This helped to maintain a certain amount of mystic. With a huge air scoop on the hood everyone assumed the engine was up front which would make the car a real monster.

Once the car was in the air you had to fly the car down the strip using brake pedals on the left and right which lead to each rear wheel separately, similar to the rudder pedals on an aircraft. All was well while the track was in sight, through the limited space in the floor panel, however once vision was lost Roy had to back off very quickly.

The Opel GT wheelie car was eventually sold and featured on a German TV-Show called "Na Sowas" of the famous german showmaster Thomas Gottshalk.