It is by no means a new phenomenon, but it seems there are more and more “big wheels” running about my area. Some are very over-the-top (Sunkist or Crown Royal color schemes, anyone?) and others, like these, are more subtle.
But even those as subtle as the two you’ll see here today are still pretty noticeable when they sit nearly a foot higher than the original factory issue.
I spotted this Caprice Classic hardtop sedan during the last month or two. After I noticed it sitting at a local garage, I made a mental note to get some pictures.
Caddys excepted, big GMs from 1971-76 are not seen very frequently either on local roads or at shows, so naturally I was drawn to this one, modifications aside.
I do have a question for folks who modify cars this way: Wouldn’t all the extra unsprung weight from the wheels make handling worse? The higher center of gravity would make these soft-sprung beasts a lot more tippy, too. You’d also need to modify the speedometer cable in order to get accurate MPH and odometer readings.
I did appreciate how the fender skirts were retained despite the addition of those giant alloy wheels. It would have been so easy just to chuck them!
As I’m sure most of you know, 1976 was the swan song for the Big Bs. Smaller, tighter-handling and more space-efficient Caprices and Impalas were on the horizon, and this was your last chance for a really big one.
The 1971-76 Bs and Cs were not as solid as their 1967-70 predecessors, and lots of cheap plastic trim was found inside. Even so, in my opinion they still had an undeniable presence. The 1976 looks even better, with its eggcrate grille and new-for-’76 quad rectangular headlights.
While I am not a fan of twenty-inch wheels, I have to tip my hat to the owner of this car for keeping it stock otherwise. The red Custom Cloth interior, side moldings, trim and vinyl top were all quite nice. You can still see the nice lines Bill Mitchell & Co. intended, and the maroon-over-white color scheme is quite sharp.
But that’s not all, folks–last summer, I saw its close relative in the supermarket parking lot. Just like the Caprice, it was in quite nice original condition, save for hi-rider wheels and tires. I believe this one is painted Firethorn Red, one of my favorite ’70s GM colors.
The interior trim identifies it as a Landau, although no landau top was in evidence. This one is pretty basic inside, too, having only a non-split bench seat. No swivel buckets, floor shift or console on this one. But at least it has a red interior!
About a dozen years ago, I remember seeing a mint red ’77 Monte like this one at most of the local shows. It had factory Rally wheels and whitewalls, and was very sharp. I can’t help but wonder if this is the same car. It certainly could be.
In any case, whoever owns these cars is certainly taking good care of them. Both were rust-free, with all the factory-installed trim, side moldings, and a nice paint job to boot. Other than upgraded stereos, the interiors were just as nice.
Now, while I prefer my Seventies Chebbies in nice, original stock form–whitewalls and all–I do have to give a nod to the owners of these cars. If not for their interest in customizing them, this pair might have been recycled into cat-food cans long ago. Saving a CC from doom and keeping it on the road is always a good thing; the roads would be so dull with nothing but silver Accords and white Tahoes!
Dub….da dub-dub DUBBBB.
(done to the Dragnet opening chords.)
Pothole-ridden cities; and no-profile tires.
Sounds like a winner to me.
If you sell rims and want to sell repeats, that is.
Hey it’s not my thing but at least someone is appreciating and getting something out of these cars. Considering the opposite is a Civic dressed like it’s ready to fly into space I suppose most of us meet in the middle.
These big wheels must be like having a 2.00:1 rear end ratio or higher (lower numerical). Accelerates the car more slowly so bystanders have more time to look at the wheels. Most of these seem to have a decent paint job though.
Oh, sure – a lot of them are very-well kept up. Probably more than a few were actually restored, albeit at-home.
But there are some bizarro tastes percolating out there. Like the bounce-cars with air-suspensions that get the car jumping off the pavement; or the proliferation of dubs. Makes me wonder: how can these guys be so skilled at keeping up/restoring old iron, and yet be so clueless?
Good thing is, when the fad wanes, there’ll be more of them left for collectors to snap up.
Makes you wonder how many of the B- and E-Bodies trading for six digits at Mecum etc today went through a similarly painful adolescence in the ’70s-’90s.
Not a fan of the look, personally. There is a place in my area that sells these big rims and advertises leases. When you have to lease your rims, it seems to me that your rims are too expensive.
I am also well known as far from the No. 1 fan of these cars, particularly the bloat B. I see that the weatherstrip is missing from between the windows on his 4 door hardtop. I never cared much for these Chevys back then. We had a family friend that replaced a 69 or 70 Olds 98 with one of these. He was never really very happy with it, but it partly may have been that he felt the Chevy was a real come-down from the Olds.
I have a nephew who bought some 20″ rims on a rent to own deal. I have no idea how much he ended up paying for them but I’m sure it was more than they were worth. I suspect that most of the cars with the huge wheels and jacked up suspensions do not get driven very far or very fast. Here, when you see on one the street, it is nearly always going down the road at 20 MPH, with the stereo cranked up to “11”.
There is some dolt in town here that did that to his 1991 Honda Accord.
It looks like doggy doo. Probably rides like it, too.
The Caprice and the Monte look to have similar aftermarket steering wheels. Is this a requirement?
> I do have a question for folks who modify cars this way: Wouldn’t all the extra unsprung weight from the wheels make handling worse? The higher center of gravity would make these soft-sprung beasts a lot more tippy, too.
They could add helper springs to stiffen the suspension. I would be more worried about front-end alignment issues from jacking the suspension up so far (unless offset spindles are available?) and the lack of cushioning that you’d normally get from the tires.
> You’d also need to modify the speedometer cable in order to get accurate MPH and odometer readings.
There is a gear in the transmission tailstock that needs to be replaced with a smaller gear (fewer teeth). It is easily accessed. Of course, they may not make a gear small enough to compensate for wheels THAT large, in which case there are also adapters available to change the speedometer gear ratio. Either way, that’s not a big deal to correct, if they actually care.
These cars have excellent front suspension geometry, so full droop the alignment is still nearly the same as at normal ride height, and the wheels are still parallel to each other. About the only thing that might be a problem is bumpsteer due to the tie rods not quite following the lower A-arm.
The front suspension on just about every GM car larger than a X-body and not a Cadillac used the same setup as the 70 1/2 F-body. after 1973.
To get the front suspension back in alignment there are new longer upper control arms to correct the geometry, sold by the same people who sell the spacers to put under the stock springs.
I don’t know if the speedo on this would be affected – as long as the TOTAL diameter of wheel + tire sidewall remains the same, everything calibrates correctly. This is why you can buy an SUV (where this all started) with either 17/18 inch wheels or the dealer upgrades to 20 if you want. The sidewall on the 20 is less, actual wheel is larger, and the total diameter is the same. The main trade off is harsh ride.
If you’re putting actual bigger wheels on (which might be the case in this caprice), then it’s another ballgame, and the suspension lifts and so on are needed.
Personally, I hate it on cars. I think the SUVs with 20’s look nice, provided they’re stock 20″ rims.
I guess at least they are taken care of and used on a regular basis. There is a 76 caprice(IDK for sure as its badges are missing) two door here in town that was rotten to the door handles and looks like it was repaired with bondo and that silver chrome rattle can paint (known as canadian tire chrome here. It is still being used daily but every time I see it I think of how it could be so much better with a months worth of work and some love.
They’re called donks and handling is not the point. To me they look like giant toy cars. They make me smile for simply being so ridiculous.
Oh I know that’s what they’re called, but they remind me of the Knight Rider Big Wheel I had as a kid. Wish I still had it–though not to ride of course 🙂
Pic from motortopia–same as mine:
When we’re in town, I get to look at the latest creations. One of them was the unholy mating of the primered-out beater with dub rims. Needed some brain bleach.
We’re coming up on the Klamath Kruise (their spelling, not mine 🙂 ) at the end of June. Over here, tinworm can be held at bay for a loooong time, so some nice cars get driven around. Hmm, reminds me, there’s a ’59 Poncho on one of the side streets that’s still in proper CC condition. Have to get a picture before it gets worked on. (It’s next to a car shop, so I assume it’s somebody’s project.)
I’m not real keen on the big wheel look, but who else is saving all these big 70s cars? Virtually no one else, that’s who. If the time ever comes where these cars are actually worth some money (and it will), the big wheels will come right off. As modifications go, big wheels are pretty mild—and probably reversible.
Giant wheel crowd, I salute your commitment to huge mid-70s land barges!
This huge wheel thing reeks of idiocy and bad taste. Seeing one of these modified POSs equates to seeing another one hauled to the scrapyard in my eyes. I hate to sound so argumentative but I wish the Giant Wheel Crowd would stick to Denalis & Escalades and lay off the old iron.
I am one of the few who save these cars. This one was nabbed off E-bay last week actually (I am thrilled with it!). Too bad the tires are in such good shape…whitewalls will be fitted hopefully soon: 15 inch of course 🙂
I assume you’re not going to Coker or Diamond Back for the whitewalls. Who still makes them?
No Chevy is safe…
No candy is safe, either…
No “Panther” is safe…
Not even mom and dad’s family truckster…
The lifted Poncho longroof really hurts to see…
What a way to destroy my favorite stationwagon of all. Morons.
Wow, plexiglass wheels. I assume those only go on for show. The two on the other side of the car aren’t plexi.
They are most likely Polycarbonate, better known by the brand name Lexan or “bullet proof glass”. It is very strong resilient stuff, so those wheels are likely stronger than many of the cheap cast wheels of that diameter and much lighter. It’s 45% of the weight of aluminum. It is very expensive stuff though, a 4′ x 8′ x 1/4″ is over $800. So the center of each of those wheels is probably at least $1k. Hopefully they are hubcentric with flat lug nuts instead of lugcentric with tapered lugs as that would cause stress fractures.
What my 3rd Gen RS could look like if I ever suffer severe brain damage and inherit $10,000 all in the same week.
This CC story should be re-titled:
“Curbside Classics: DONK-ey Style”
Not sure if it’s an optical illusion, but in the last picture the big wheels on the Monte Carlo appear to bring it up to about the same height as the Honda Accord next to it. It shows how low the cars of the 70’s were.
First off..Like many here, the Donk thing is not for me. I’m also glad to see that somebody takes the time,effort and cash, to put these things together.
Back in the spring of 1976 as the last of the big Chevs came down the line, I was given the job of Utility Repair. I was still mostly in the pit,but it was a 10 cent and hour raise.The big drive was on to train for the new car. I was low senoirity, so my job was to cover the pit operations on the big “B” cars. Gas tanks, Park brake, and Speedo cables, skirt bolts.
You could say I had intimate knowledge,of the underside on a 76 “B” car. That era of cars will always hold something special for me. So glad to see that somebody take an interest, no matter how strange it may seem to us.
.
Wow: how I would love to pick your brain! 🙂 Which plant were you at? What exactly did you do? Did you deal with build sheets any or recall where you’ve seen them stashed?
I’m nuts over the ’71-’76 GM cars & their little ’73-’77 brothers.
@ junqueboi…. I started in Sept. 1972 Oshawa plant one. We built 73 “B” Chev for domestic and US export.. We also built a stovebolt 6 “B” Chev, with three on the tree for South America.. With the “B” Chev we also ran American “B” Pomtiac,and the Canadian Pontiac. Every fifth car was a station wagon. All models. We did not run right hand drive,or Convertibles.
Plant 2, next door ran “A” Chev, and Monte Carlo.,export and domestic.I don’t think they run American “A” Pontiac.They did run run Canadian “A” Pontiac Le mans..
My job ….Pit assembler 72 -76. Utility repair 76 -80. acting production groupleader 80-82 ,production groupleader 82 -89. Press operator stamping plant 89- 96, Shipper, reciever Oshawa stamping 96 right up untill “the fit hit the shan in late 2008”.
GM and the CAW worked out a deal to get rid of us old guys ASAP. I walked out the door on Dec19 2008, the same day that George W wrote the first bail out check
I never looked back..
In Feb 1973 Monte demand was so high,we ran them in both plants,right through the 74 model year.
The build sheet,or as we called it the “schedule broadcast sheet” was tailored to each build process,and was taped to different parts of the car as it went through the system. Try looking at the back seat in the springs.
Around these parts, the Lexus SC 300/400 are the preferred donk cars. Besides the obligatory Monte Carlos and Impalas. Never seen a donked Taurus yet 🙂
Like the Monte Carlo and Impala, the Lexus SC cars are front-engine RWD cars, and they have a double wishbone front suspension, not MacPherson struts.
It’s probably much more difficult to raise the suspension on a FWD vehicle to accommodate the huge wheels because of the struts and limitations on CV joint angles.
yet is here and it’s a catfish…………
Do they get paid or do they have to pay to make their cars look like giant candy wrappers? Yeah, they do have major trouble with bumpsteer.
The current fad for plastering candy and snack-food logos all over hi-riser vehicles is a fascinating cultural development, and one not easily explained. (But then, jacking your car up so high you need a stepladder to open the doors isn’t easily explained either.)
Here’s the Trayvon Martin Edition of an early-70s B-body — one of at least TEN different Skittles-related Chevies, Caddies, Fords and SUVs your computer will cough up when you google “skittles donk.” Taste the rainbow!
Sorry, the Trayvon Martin edition?
Assuming you mean the same poor guy who was in the news after being shot dead in murky circumstances, I’m not sure I grasp the relevance…
Was the “Trayvon Martin” reference meant to be a joke? Looks like you could use some new material.
It really pains me to see cars done like this (I live in California but saw even more when visiting Texas recently). A lot of what I saw was ’80s models (Olds 88, Caprice, Ford LTD etc.) I guess you do have a point, though, that at least it’s reversible (well, sort of, except for finding the probably discarded original wheels and wheel covers). It is nice to see more old cars out and about, but this just rubs me the wrong way! The traditional low riders seem so normal by comparison..
I wonder if this sort of thing didn’t originate in the south. The reason I say this is that one of my facebook friends from the Memphis area has a whole photo album full of this sort of vehicle. Most are late GM, but there are also plenty of Panthers and more than one Tahoe. The one photo that I remember is a Tahoe sitting in an empty parking lot in the rain, the SUV painted the most unearthly bright reddish purple I’ve ever seen on a vehicle, and about two feet of the storefront visible under the vehicle.
Those silly wheels can be found on nearly anything usually some POS that can barely move along the road due to the massive overdrive created by these dubs,dialing all the ride comfort out of a car may seem like a good idea to some along with lowering it to remove any cornering ability the OEM may have endowed you car with must also be a good idea in some circles too, and on a dead smooth surface your wierd modifications might make sense however on normal roads your dub equipped heap will bounce all over the road and will be basicly uncontrolable at speed.
Remember friends, a Curbside Classic is a terrible thing to waste.
This is your CC…
This is your CC on drugs… Any questions?
These, plus the Olds 98 from the weekend, raise a donk-tech question of sorts. The 98 kept its fender skirts due in part to rear tires that looked narrower than the fronts. The Caprice keeps its fender skirts, but the rear tires look pretty wide. I’d think it’d be hard to build larger rear wheel wells. What are they doing??
The Olds also had a higher front stance, like a drag car–too bad “W-XX” badges are too rare to be scavenged for this sort of thing. (98 Regency “W-300” does the quarter in 13.5 but tips on its side in 10 if you shift it wrong?)
Although wikipedia now says that “donk” comes from the Impala logo, the first time I heard an etymology for the term, it was from the “budonkadonk butt” of the 1971+ Caprice 2-door. Those trunks do look huge with the air vents.
Donk was short for Donkey, ie Impala but not just any Impala a 71-76 though a Caprice also qualified. The fad for Donkeys became to put large diameter wheels and they uninformed started to refer to any lifted car as a Donk which is the common car related definition.
Of course budonkadonk referring to a large derriere that shook was also eventually shortened to donk too.
Referring to Impalas as Donkeys goes way back, at least to the 80’s and likely before that.
I cry out for gas to hit $15 per gallon.
If gas was $15/gal the only people be driving are cops, fleet operators, uber wealthy, and drug kingpins…
Which means there would be a greater percentage of these on the road/ stereotyping off.
My wife got the 20″ bling wheels on her Edge Limited. I can’t stand driving the thing because it feels so heavy. LMAO when replacement tires cost her $200 each.
My parents have factory 18s on their Edge, and it feels like a steamroller. I’d have paid extra to go down to the base 16s.
I just don’t “get it.” These big wheels with ultra narrow sidewalls just look stupid. they don’t enhance the cars handling and it sets everything out of proportion. It ranks right up there with sounds systems with over boosted and distorted bass that vibrates the cars sheet metal. Cool? If you want to enhance that old Chevy’s resale value (and get more second hand looks)go back to stock suspension and wheels. Nobody buys a used car that looks like it was made for a clown.
what is the size of the tires on the 76 monte carlo?