The pictures you see here are recent photos of the last banchi FKE that was ever built,
#11. According to Gary Renaud, its current owner, it was located out in the weather in
Healdsburg, California.
"A friend of mine was helping me move", Gary tells us. "The kart was
sitting out in the back yard. Nobody seemed to think anything of it. My friend had been
into karts for quite awhile and he began looking it over. It dawned on him that this is
pretty cool. It was in pretty poor condition. We picked it up and brought it home.
"The axles were frozen. The bearings were shot. It was pretty rusted. It took hours just to free up the rear axle. There was no windshield. The nose had been cut off. The rear tailpiece was on it but it was hanging in pieces."
These first photos show the kart as it was found before beginning to clean it up.
Notice the modern era rear wing. The single engine is a Komet 99 with a very tall final
drive.
A mutual friend of this reporters had told Gary of the success and fun that I had with my
vintage kart and how the vintage kart thing was catching on, and so gary and i were
introduced. I suggested that it might be an FKE and then asked Bob DiNozzi (Vintage Karts
web site) to connect Gary with Harv Aschenbrenner (Banchi founder/designer), which he did.
Harv, after revewing these photos, identified it as Banchi#11.
Now that he knows the rarity and historical significance of what he has, Gary fully
intends to return Banchi #11to its full glory.
See the Restoration in Progress
Ed Note:
John Newbern of Santa Rosa CA is a regular correspondent to the Vintage Karts site and has
contributed photos to Readers' Karts (including his spectacular 59 Bug wasp). Harv
Aschenbrenner, who contributed the Banchi history found elsewhere on this site, had this
to say about Gary's kart:
"It is indeed a Banchi and the last one I built. It was my personal machine that
I ran it in 1967, re-built and re-painted in 68 and sold it to Max-Torque. Don Surwall
told me that he won two nationals back to back with it."
Banchi #11, as it appeared in its original 1967 form (with yellow and white paint scheme), can be seen in the photo in that article. It's the second one in.