Rake ?? seems like around the 65-68 they called a power rake front end up and rear stock height. I had a 57 Chev like that.Wish I had a pic of that old ride!! 283 punched out to 301 Duntov 30 30.
Eight years and no-one has done a cursory etymological study! "Rake" in the sense of an angle was a nautical term attested in the early 17th century, earlier than "rake" in the sense of a dissolute man or roué, though "rakehell" occurs at least as early as the middle of the 16th century. The latter isn't just a case of putting "rake" and "hell" together but derives from the Middle English adjective rakel, meaning "hasty, rash, headstrong." One gets the impression of a whole knot of words which gives us race, racy, rakish, rake, etc. The word "rakish" is a bit ambiguous. In early usage it isn't quite clear, when used of a ship, if the intent is, "having pronounced angles" or, "typical of a rakehell or rake, i.e. a pirate or smuggler." It isn't clear which way round it developed: probably close senses reinforced each other. It seems reasonable that "rake" as of a hot rod derives from the nautical use. I don't know if that happened directly or via some other sense e.g. in mechanical engineering. What a good philologist does now is sift through the available sources for examples of early usage, and try to interpret by comparison with other contemporary usage what the intended sense was. How often does the word "rake" occur in the early magazines? The thing to look for is an instance where the usage was not yet established, where the writer wasn't quite sure his readers would understand what he was trying to say, because he was using a word foreign to the subject matter to describe something for which there is as yet no established term. Needless to say, the garden implement sense has an entirely different origin: it is related to "reach" and "rack." (Cue 3wLarry in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... )
My mom went to high school in San Diego in the late '50s. Her piers at that time referred to a pronounced nose down stance on a car as a "California rake".
They were still calling it California Rake when I was in high school in the '60s. @Ned Ludd I recall one time when I was back east and it was said that I looked quite rakish sitting there with my schooner of ale.
now my memories come back. 1968. uncool method of achieving the rake. reversed shackles on the early 60s fords and mercs and LONG shackles on anything else with leaf springs. did that on my 56 safari.
The Jalopy Journal
