Sometimes We Pay The Price For Looking Cool

by Murilee Martin

Published: December 1st, 2010

sometimes we pay the price for looking cool

Now that my ’66 Dodge A100 runs and drives, I’m contemplating what sort of stance it’s going to have once I install the new wheels. Certified Rambler-racin’ madman and Denver chop-n-channel artist Cadillac Bob suggests that I jack up the front end for that solid-axle gasser look, and he’s probably onto something. However, a cool stance sometimes leads to unpleasant sheet-metal-versus-concrete interactions.

Whether you’re jacking the rear of your ’68 Cyclone about four feet in the air in order to fit the fattest Mickey Thompson tires you can find (as I did to my daily driver at age 18) or installing 24s on your Caprice (as the previous owner of this rollover-victim Caprice I spotted in a NorCal junkyard this morning did), you’re ditching a lot of engineering man-hours dedicated to making your machine handle at least somewhat predictably. Worth it?

After seeing this bonked donk, which no doubt wrecked due to bizarre handling characteristics caused by its monster wheels, I’m reevaluating the idea of the gasser-ized A100; the handling of that van is squirrelly enough at factory ride height, the single-circuit four-wheel-drum brakes are pretty scary, and let’s not even discuss the zero crush space between driver and concrete abutment.

#Caprice #ChevroletCaprice #Donk #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Safety

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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BigOldChryslers on Dec 02, 2010
the single-circuit four-wheel-drum brakes are pretty scary @MM: Since you don't care about the originality of your van, updating it to use a dual-circuit MC should be quite inexpensive. You only need the MC, a few Weatherhead fittings, and a short length of prefab brake line that has the fittings and flares already done. I've done this conversion on two Chryslers, and a disc brake conversion on a third one, which is only slightly more complicated. I assume the procedure for your van would be similar.

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Bigdonks on Nov 26, 2012

Hey that white 93 chevy caprice is my old car i still have the pink slip to it i can show you pics how it use to look before we flipped over in that car it only have like 111,000 miles on it did you buy it at central tow in fremont that was a good running car. Trigshaeb@yahoo.com

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