Projects Gasser Rims... Red V Black

Brian, it boils down to the fact that many, if not most modern "g***ers" are not g***ers at all, but almost rat rod type street freaks. Jacked up, ill handling and stopping. Putting steel wheels in the rear is fine, it's a matter of money as well as style.
I for one am not telling you how or what to build, just made suggestions for things to avoid and to include.
You can do anything you want, but I believe you'd rather have a car that people would like rather than scorn.
In other words, do better than most! A Stude is an unusual car to start with, take a look at the gas cl*** rules ( to get a FEEL for these cars), look at REAL g***ers from the 60's and go for it!
This IS the HAMB, a traditional site for a traditional look. The jacked up freak look isn't traditional, so we "old crusty" guys urge you to do better.

Have fun and be safe!

 

Examples!
Noooooooooooo!!!!!


More NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!


NOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

GOOD EXAMPLES

 

Hi Brian and welcome to the "S**** Yard" where g***ers are discussed, debated and debunked daily.
As Gary said, we are just trying to guide you onto the path towards an admirable and useful car as opposed to a Cartoon car. As always your budget, talent and cir***stances will be the main factors to guide your build. It sounds like you have basically the right idea to start, find a cool old car, make it usable and safe then improve the look and performance.
Why don't you post a few pictures of the car as it is now. Post any specific changes you are considering and I'm sure Moose or one of the other PhotoShop experts on here can show you what it may look like.

 

In my never to be humble opinion, steelies will definitely give you a hot rod but you need mags for a g***er.

 

In my never to be humble opinion, steelies will definitely give you a hot rod but you need mags for a g***er.


Mags can come later, money matters to most of us! Build a decent car FIRST, then add to it!
I'd paint those steelies RED!

 

I'm sorry that you find it offensive. Maybe its a matter of perspective, but there are plenty of times where the new members are treated with just a little hostility. If you've been here for a long time maybe you just see it as the norm, but I'd bet a lot of new members dont appreciate the undertones.

I can and do appreciate that the established gents in this crowd are willing to share knowledge, at the same time you should appreciate that new guys stick around long enough to NOT build the rides that you all despise.

Thanks for the jail card!

 

Gary, thanks for the link, good stuff, and thanks for the rest of your posts. The realization i have come to is I cannot build a daily driver to all standards from the 60's. Sure there may be some that can or do, but i can build a hot rod influenced by or a tribute to the cars i liked as a kid. I also have to admit that i dont mind a car with a patina, certainly not to an extreme rat rod level, more natural.
Here is what I'm starting with...

 

And a cl***ic example to debunk earlier comments, the nose high Silver Dollar did exist back then and also beat Big John

 

I dont know anyone with a Lark so all i had to go with was the details from Mr. Turner. I figured theyd clear but i also didnt want to do the conversion and find out he was correct, and be stuck scrambling for wheels. I chose the steel wheels after searching the local sale sites for wheels that would work.

I do really like the altered look and figure my car will have that at***ude until (now if) i change to a dropped axle.

 

Friend, I don't know when you found the HAMB, I started reading here in '05. By the early HAMB standards you've been treated very nicely. But that's besides the point....

Your car looks good to me the way it sits now. Maybe just a little forward rake and a big engine. Then have fun! What ever you do, do it safely.
-Dave

 

The 101 car that I posted has a pretty straight axle under it. Parallel leaf springs. And you look closely, my name on the side. Lousy brakes. It was built to go. Not stop.

 

True, exceptions that prove the rule are out there. But us unwashed m***es who want to build a 'real g***er' know that we can never own a real 60s car. Thus we are stuck with sitting in our mother's ba*****t in our underwear and looking at pictures of g***ers on the internet or building a 'tribute car'. I totally understand the budgetary side of the argument, there is a time steelies are to only way to go to get on the street which is the prime goal for sure. However the goal for a 'real g***er' should always be to dress it with a 354 hemi, a GMC roots diesel supercharger, a Hilborn 4-holer scoop, GM 4-speed Dual Rang Hydro, narrowed Olds rear end, Corvair steering gear, 'glas front end, single 'shute, 3" water pipe bumper, front wheels below the wheel wells, etc. That way your car will always be properly 'cl***ed' at the Friday night Sonic Drive-In rod runs. When someone says 'G***er', Silver Dollar doesn't usually come to mind as often as Traveler, Swindler, Big John, Jack the Bear, KS, Malco, etc. do.

And of course the arguments about what is 'correct' and what is 'incorrect' are patently silly at the core. Build it and drive it. Only join a club if it is a pleasant experience, forget it otherwise and enjoy your car.

 

Keep in mind, that the cars we build here are art. The art critics each have their own tastes...

 

^^ Well said, Jim.

 

I think{ SQUIRREL },has it right! ART! Just my opinion. But As a kid, I LOVED Ed Roth's tee shirts, and also his art work! I built model cars, and would draw shetches of them in school for my friends. I knew that these G***ers and Rods, were greatly exaggerated. But very much fun to imagine. So I'm thinking there's a lot of folks that may think, that some where really that way. And maybe Chevy's, really did eat Fords for breakfest.Lol Here's a couple of my old models, that I built back then. But I suggest that if your going to build a { REAL G***ER }. That you should do your research, and ask the guys, that actually built and drove them. Or maybe you will be building a cool piece of ART! Ron....

 

Hey, easy, Hildebrand is my Auntie!

 

also keep in mind that when you label your car a "g***er", that label carries some baggage with it...the term has acquired a modern meaning a**** the car admiring public, but it also means a different, very specific thing to folks who care about drag racing history.

Art makes a statement, different to each viewer. To the knowledgeable, it can make the statement that you either don't know, or don't care about, drag racing history. Even if that's not what you intended to say, with your art.

 

I think that if you look at the picture of the Silver Dollar and the Lark that I was involved with. You can see that different people did things different ways. Do what you like but remember Moderation in all things is a good practice.

 

For every nose up g***er you can pull out I can pull a dozen out that were not. What you did see early on at least in NorCal where I was were cars that were dropped a little bit in the rear that is how they got around the no lift for traction advantage rule and still got a little better weight transfer than stock.

The match bash cars, or cam wars cars or g***er wars cars (depending on who's book you are reading this week) were generally Match Race cars. They were not the rank and file gas cl*** cars. Big money big sponsors. Those guys pretty nearly all started as Pork'n'******s and had a good line which got them into good sponsors.

I actually have a raffle ticket for a Plymouth mullet mobile. Fake spindle mounts and nose up. I have an edge, I know how to de-arch a spring and have a pair of very early Ansens. Not likely I will win it but ya just never know.

I get a lot od grief for it but I have been calling them mud boggers with slicks for a while.

Painted wheels were the mainstay for the lower budget weekend racers. I actually have steel wheels on my altered. I am cheating and using smoothies on the rear until I can afford a decent set of narrow slicks then I will have a pair of home reversed steelies like it had in the beginning. Guess I could get myself feeling rich and chase down a set of Magic-nesium wheels but probably not. I would mush ruther have a good time.

Now just for chits n giggles I happen to have a set of 1964 NHRA gas coupe/sedan rules. There was a time that '64 was our cutoff date and I figured that the most modern g***er one could build would be built to the '64 rules. They are a little hard to read and of course they are just opinion but they make for good reading and trying to figure out how to cheat the rules.

These may not be in the right order but have fun anyway.

 

"For every nose up g***er you can pull out I can pull a dozen out that were not."

Porkn****** is correct! Like I said, argue with the NHRA rulebooks which some of you can't be bothered to read!
I provided a link to all the 60's rules!
NHRA RULEBOOKS!!!!! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2006u57wp7sqpxt/eZJPZZcJdZ
Jim is also correct as usual!
Speaking of Jim, his skills are crazy! He can do almost anything, as can many of you.
I on the other hand have almost no tech skills, it's been years. I sold all my tools and stuff years ago, am now retired (OLD ) and live happily with my wife in a tiny apartment, drive a fast OT car. Never was very talented anyway!
BUT, I do know 60's drag racing, I do know HISTORY and 60's drag cars!
I'm not saying you need to duplicate 60's g***ers, but remain true to the feel and purpose of the cl***.
It really isn't open to interpretation guys! It was what it was! History is not really "just a matter of opinion", it's factual, has been recorded extensively in great detail.
Just start with a sound car, put in decent brakes, suspension, put in a hotter 6 ( yes) or a small block. Look to REAL G***ERS for ideas and inspiration. VERY FEW g***ers were blown with big hemis, by far most were earlier Fords and tri 5 Chevys and most Chevies had stock type front suspension. Most were carbureted too. THAT's the facts!
Anybody that went to the drags in the 60's can confirm this, I do not need to look at magazines and guess.
Don't look to me for tech! But I DO KNOW A G***ER FROM AN ALTERED FROM A STREET FREAK!
Have some fun Brian!

 

There is a lot to be said for learning history from being there as opposed to learning from a book. There are actually a lot of guys her that were active in racing while I was still a spectator. I listen to them for information that may have escaped me, they got no reason to lie about it.

 

There is a lot to be said for learning history from being there as opposed to learning from a book. There are actually a lot of guys her that were active in racing while I was still a spectator. I listen to them for information that may have escaped me, they got no reason to lie about it.

Well said man!
AND history is what the HAMB is ALL ABOUT?
To you knuckleheads that want modern stuff (excepting safety ), what do you think traditional means??
HISTORY!!
If you don't want to build according to HISTORY and TRADITION, why are you on the HAMB anyway?
We older guys have no axe to grind, we are simply relating how it used to be, and that is the exact definition of the HAMB's existence.
I still vote red!!!!

 

Yes, the rule book is a useable reference. The G***er cl***es started out as an everyman's drag racing cl*** where anyone could run what you brung. Look at it as the first attempt to take the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ out of racing like today's bracket cl***es. However the human condition is to always go bigger and better and faster, etc. Heck, drag racing itself was simply a way to get GIs off the streets and onto abandoned WWII aircraft runways and off the streets so they killed themselves instead of innocent citizens!
G***ers evolved from the guy's grocery getter, into eventually the marvelous cartoon Willys coupes with crazy engines and crazy paint jobs and even crazier suspensions, etc. that we all love. That golden era of G***erdom only lasted a few short years until tires caught up with GI modified gasoline engine power, Pony cars emerged from Detroit and were infinitely superior engineering (and incredibly safer than the old glorified Conestoga wagons) and $$$$$$$$$$$ showed up to pay to see these door slammers go really fast(er). The pro cars that took the G***er moniker with them quickly morphed into today's funny cars. Door slammers had permanently lost their *** appeal.

Come down to today and us old geezers want to relive those glory days which are epitomized by the pro G***ers. G***ers were, as described in other posts, everything from dead stock family cars to the pro match race monsters. The latter are what we romanticize as 'real G***ers' but a dead stock 194 cu-in 6-cylinder, 4-door, 65 Nova is just as much a g***er as the SWC Swindler.

Build it the way you want, call it what you want, and enjoy driving it. That is what it is all about.

 

I really do like the look of the 101 lark, and the other one as well. My sister had a lime green GTO with a similar att***ude (to 101), that was in 74 or 75 and it definitly shaped my view of hot rods.
I like how you said it had lousy brakes and advertized 'Stop & Go auto parts', to me, thats funny!

 

Well it was a drag car. Drum brakes on the rear (Pontiac) axle only. Good enough for what we were doing. The Turner brake kit on the Blue Lark was the best thing I did to it. It was a 383 SBC 4 speed car with a 9 inch and ladder bars. used to show BMW jerks they are not as fast as the salesman told them it was. Sold it down to Australia.

 

As far as old guys go...some are dead on accurate and don’t embellish, and some get better looking and had faster cars every time they tell the story. That’s why you should start a collection of old drag illustrated’s and Hot Rod magazines. The photos don’t stretch the truth...now don’t take this asa shot at the old guys. I respect the ones who were there and give their histories and perspectives...but some of them ya need tall boots to stand anywhere near them.[emoji15]


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

And here is an excellent place to start as far as drag car pics and history...

http://www.georgekl***.net/index.html


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Hello,

There is no debunking of anyone or style. We all know that those “nose in the air” Gas Coupes, Sedans and Trucks existed in the later years of this cl*** of “street legal” cars. That is why the OP needs to narrow down the timeline for his car(s). It is hard to say that a “nose in the air” is the example of a Gas Coupe and Sedan build. That is a different era.

That photo of the Silver Dollar Willys was later than 1964, so it is in a later timeline. There was an early version of the truck in 1964 at Lions. This era still had the top racers like Big John, SWC, C&O, K.S. Pittman with their powerful “level” stance cars at rest and nose in the air upon acceleration. The power from their motors made the front end rise and power was sent back to the big slicks.

http://www.jrthompson.net/jrthome.html

Here is a film from 1964 that I submitted to Ryan for the Gas Coupe and Sedan audience on the HAMB in 2016. It was the first time back to Lions for me, since our episode in 1960: It was an all Gas Coupe and Sedan Meet at Lions Dragstrip. (advertised as such) The top racers from all over So Cal were racing that day.


This is the beginning of the lightweight cars and sedans in the Gas Coupe and Sedan Cl***es. So, without any other photo bashing or era bashing, let’s have the OP designate which era he is trying to emulate with his truck or car. Then keep the photos matching that era. Some of the top racers in the USA stayed with the level look, even to this day.

Jnaki

This old drag racer likes the level look, but we all know everyone has their own likes and dislikes.


lift off upon acceleration…

1959 RIVERSIDE RACEWAY WILLYS SEDAN

 

Its interesting to see the regional differences for builds. I grew up in Montana, there were not a lot of tracks, so unless you got lucky to go to the drags it was magazines and the televised drag racing that hooked me. I did have the pleasure to be around a fair number of local hot rods which influenced style. I look forward to see how my ride develops over time. Like I mentioned, this will be my daily driver.

Thanks to Gary and you Porkn****** and the others for posting the rules, I'm going through all posted refrerences and links in response to my question.