CC Wordless Outtake: Reinforcing Stereotypes
– Posted on November 19, 2012
-
-
-
American Brands: GM 
American Brands: Ford 
American Brands: Chrysler 
American Brands: AMC, Jeep and All Others 
Automotive Histories and Misc. 
Asian Brands 
UK Brands 
Australian Brands 
European Brands 
Cars Of A Lifetime & Auto-Biography 
Buses 
Trucks, Pickups and Vans 
Design 
Trains, Planes & Ships 
Motorcycles, Trikes, Bicycles 
Engines, Transmissions and other Tech 
Tractors, Lawn Mowers, Off-Road Equipment 
RVs, Motorhomes, Trailers, Campers
Drat! I was at the scrapyard & there was a Neon there with the full Type R package — it even had the askew license plate cutout “crafted” into the decklid. It was a work-in-progress, just like the gem above. I knew I should have taken a picture of it.
No words…. Should have sent a poet.
Those wheels are gross. The rest would be fine with a respray.
Shame they couldn’t get Earl to scheiB all over it.
The wing is large enough for four friends to push it when it inevitably breaks down. Assuming the wing doesn’t snap off.
PS, Is that a child seat being used as a driver’s headrest?
It certainly looks like it. Odd seat colour choice if not.
Looks like a normal current hot-rod to me. How quickly we forget what the car-crazy teens and early 20’s crowd were actually driving back in 1962. We remember the custom magazines from back then, with their ‘trailer-queen-for-show-only” showcars. And we very conveniently forget that the average kid was driving a 53 or (if lucky) 55 Chevy or Ford, heavy on the bondo and primer, and never quite getting done to the total fruition of his dream car.
And yes, those hot-rodders back then were looked down with the same sneering superiority that we now reserve for the low-buck fast-and-furious crowd. Just a pack of lemming-like assholes with no taste in cars, and less money to put something vaguely respectable on the street.
I like the car. I wouldn’t mind owning one, although I’ve got too much pride to let it out on the street in that cosmetic state.
I hear you, and agree. My point, to the extent that there was one, is that these particular cars probably have the highest percentage of being modified. It’s very hard to find them in their original state. I’d venture to guess it’s the most likely car to be modified, of anything of fairly recent vintage.
I agree. My first thought was how laughably ugly those wheels appear to me now, but how just 15 years ago when I was in high school I would have put them on my car in a second.
I almost agree, but not quite. Because those body kits, wings, and wheels aren’t cheap. Probably cost more than the car is worth. No, we spent our money on performance and left looks to CHEAP tacky stuff. That’s completely opposite to this stereotype.
The painted brake drums on back and chrome door edging fall into the kind of stuff we used to do I suppose. The kits and wheels, no.
No, we spent our money on performance and left looks to CHEAP tacky stuff. That’s completely opposite to this stereotype
Ah yes. What I call the “Small Block Syndrome”. What I mean is back when I was a punk. That would be the late 70’s. All you needed to go fast was a Summit catalog and a credit card. I remember my first brother in law had it bad. Bought a brand new 79 Z/28 with a 180 horse LM1 and 4 gear. Now HotRod said this was a high,very high 15 second car. Well he couldn’t drive to save his ass but I could and I believe HR when they got a 15.90 out of one. So one day off came the Q-Jet and iron manifolds and on went the Edelbrock,Holley and Hookers. That car couldn’t bust itself out of a wet paper bag after that! To this day I have to shake my head when I see one of these or any other car for that matter at the drags. I mean a car that goes slower than what the buff books tested them at “stock”. SBCS? Well if it doesn’t go fast enough just drop in a SBC. Afterall the cheapest parts in the Summit catalog fit the SBC. “How fast do you want to go? How much money do you have?”
My first hot rod was a ’76 Chevy Monza that came stock with a 305, a deuce carb, and some severely restrictive exhaust manifolds and single exhaust. When I couldn’t keep up with some punk in a Camaro, things had to change! I built a 350 out of a junk Chevy wagon my dad cut up for scrap, hoping to make a trailer out of the frame (no such luck!), cammed it up, stuck a used iron 4bbl intake on it, along with a Q-Jet off a late ’60s Buick 455, Hooker headers and a custom dual exhaust. Externally, the car was stock right down to the 13″ steel wheels (painted black) and center caps. The only hint of anything was the twin 2-1/4″ tailpipes sticking out side by side under the right side of the bumper. That car was rip-roaring fun, but the trans started slipping less than a year later, and there was no way the trans was coming out around those headers! So the engine came back out to change the trans (and the deep-sump oil pan I had on it, that hit the ground a few times, with a stock V8 Monza pan). I put a higher stall speed torque converter in along with the new trans, which could now bark the tire (open diff) while shifting into second. Unfortunately, the flimsy H-body, weakened with New England winters, was no match for a heavy, healthy 350. After another year of driving (good weather only, garaged in winter), the front fenders were touching the hood on both sides, the RF fender didn’t line up with the edge of the door, and the LF tire was worn to the belts on the inner edge. But the engine & trans only had a few thousand miles on them, so they went into my brother’s ’79 Pontiac Phoenix (badgineered Nova) 4-door. It came from NC so the body was solid. Again, that car was stock looking except for the dual exhaust. The motor & trans went into one more car after that, an ’84 Regal, then I married my ex-wife and the rest is history!
You’re mad at Small Block Chevies because your former BIL more than likely Over Cammed and Over Carbbed a Smog 350 that had some of the worst flowing heads of the 70s and early 80s?
I was gonna say, I swapped heads on my box stock smogger ’76 305 to early ’90s 305 heads, kept the two barrel carb, the limp cam and the restrictive exhaust. I think it picked up 60hp just from the head swap. 0-60 went from about 12 seconds, to down around 8-9 seconds. It still fell flat on its face at 4500 rpm from lack of breathing but it could seriously scoot after that -relatively speaking. And this was on a shortblock with 200,000 miles on it. To say the cylinders were not round anymore is an understatement
I would’ve played around with the 305 if I didn’t have a ’71 350 to build. I thought about trying a 4-barrel on it but with a 350 waiting in the wings, I never bothered. Once the 305 was out of the car, I couldn’t believe how small the outlet was on the passenger side exhaust manifold – it couldn’t have been much more than 1-1/2″! I guess it was designed for the 110hp 262. No wonder the ’75 Monza 350 was only rated at 125hp!
You’re not getting the gist of my comment. Yes there were talented motorheads who knew to change the cam,heads,pistons. Than there was my BIL. My BIL was yesterdays equivelent to this RiceBoy in the feature pic. Get the comparison? IMO the SBCS is running rampant more today than it was 30 years ago. Fast & Furious movies, GranTurismo games and the interweb(todays Summit catalog) all prove my point. Anybody been to a NOPI show lately?
And I don’t hate SBCs. I’ve owned my fair share of them over the years. I just think there are better motors to spend my money on.
You can’t argue that the SBC is the cheapest engine to build. The SBCS is not just about small block Chevys. It’s acronym for anything an individual deems to be stupid.
Did he even get the timing right after swapping the intake? If not, he probably had numerous vacuum leaks too!
Here’s my quick list of most modified cars:
Mitsu Eclipse
Honda Prelude
Chrysler Neon
Honda Civic
Acura Integra
Someone in my neighborhood had a Talon convertible with what looks to be the same wing. Nothing else was done, just the wing.
Someone else in the neighborhood has a normal (not EVO) Mitsubishi Lancer with some of the plastic “extras” on it. A couple of years ago, the look was spoiled when someone spray painted “slut” on both sides of the car.
I can’t get past the redundant air scoops. It just looks so silly; it looks just like a well-used Hot Wheels car. This having been said, I bet the guy that owns it is having a lot of fun working on it.
You know what I haven’t seen in a while, and kind of miss? A slammed/ customized mini-truck. They used to be everywhere back in the late 80’s-90’s. I guess that fad had to end sometime. I never really got into the tuner car thing, but I think that fad is also coming to an end quickly–ruined by the likes of Scion and Kia (not that they’re actually bad cars) by trying to manufacture and market their products as “cool”. Kids get to judge what’s cool or not, not car companies. Someone thought this Mitsu was cool enough to build, I wonder what the next trend will be…. Hybrid tuners? Chopped crossovers? Sadly, Camaros, Mustang GTs, and Challengers with their $30K + price tags means that they’ll mostly be relegated to “midlife crisis car” status.
Minitrucks actually take some talent to create, as much so as the classic hotrods and the culture was at least realistic about itself. I was never into it but I certainly respected it more. The “tuners” (which is kind of like calling garbagemen “waste management specialists”) by contrast have off the shelf items for their “custom one of a kind” car, and then claim them claim how they’re faster than everything else on the road.
Luckly that fad is dead.
I just thought of a new name for cars like this – snickers! Why?? Because I snicker every time I see or hear one (you know, that big fat fart can sound)!
Go, Speed Ricer, go!
One thing these cars did well was strengthen the appreciation for RWD V8 cars. I certainly spent my early teens(tweens) absolutely lamenting these rolling spectacles and their gel haired operators at the peak of their popularity. Everyone who owned them round here bought the same 2 body kits, same erector set spoilers, had equally appalling noises eminating from their sound systems as through their 4″ fart cans and below all that “catalog custom” exterior? Intercoolers piped to no where, cold air intakes with the filter open to the engine bay, small stock brakes with rear drums below the 18″ rims, and narrow band A/F gauges.
The fad for this style of car with huge wings and body kits has thankfully moved on, just as the minitrucks once were big before these. These peaked in the early 2000’s and coincided with the fast and furious movie, and even those movies have abandoned this type of car. Incidentally I think the front bumper on this car is the same as was used on the green one in the movie. I’m glad we’ve moved on from this, these were just over the top. I don’t think you can really call the people building these tuners as they weren’t tuning anything, just throwing on all the bolt on body kits and accessories that they could. The tuners were the ones taking these cars and cranking up the boost and otherwise legit performance mods. I’d still like a turbo DSM (which this is not) but for now I’m happy with my turbo Neon. In case anybody isn’t sure or can’t tell from the pictures, the bare metal/bondo patches at the corners are where the bumpers are being molded into the body so as to appear as though the car is all one piece.
I saw a last-gen (’92-’02) Supra last weekend. I couldn’t tell what it was from a distance—it was very lightly and tastefully modified with an aftermarket front bumper cover, minor lowering over 17″ 5-spoke chrome wheels, and deeply tinted windows—and it was painted all black with one badge—a “smoked” Toyota devil head. Sort of a stealth look that I appreciate on almost any car.
I forgot how far ahead of their time these cars were in ’92. Wow.
To me it seemed like the ultimate evolution of the late 90s early 2000s “tuner” trend. Someone with the taste and the money to do it right in 2012 is nice to see. Maybe it’s akin to someone with a plain-jane ’57 Chevy 210 doctoring it into Bel Air shape, but I’m OK with that interpretation of hot rodding.
The car above, on the other hand…I wish it the very best. Those wheels were and are a crime against humanity, but boy are they period-correct. It could turn out nice if the owner has the skill (or perhaps, the $$$) to do it right.
Is Barney passed out drunk in the front seat?