Skirts and a rake don't mix, at least not in the original "California rake" tradition. Borrowed from hot rods, the rake emphasizes the rear tires and gives the car an aggressive attitude. Hiding those tires with skirts mixes two opposing styles, IMO contradictorily. Sorry, Ed. All four of these are good looking cars, but the skirts need to come off.
most of the time I agree with you fellas, however there are exceptions to every rule. These 2 below made the choice for putting skirts on mine pretty easy.
Neither have I......In the Midwest, anything cool was from the West Coast as often as not. The "Rake" and the "California Rake" were one and the same...That is, when many of us grew up in that era. One difference perhaps being the amount of lowering done to the front end. When Rakes were popular in my part of the Country, the drop to the Front End was usually pretty radical. Many of the cars pictured in this Thread barely qualify as a Rake at all. As as Standard, raked cars seldom wore Lakes Pipes, No Skirts, and usually Lakes Plugs, (Sneakers, Cut-Outs, whatever you want to call them) were the exhaust treatment most often used with the rake...Sometimes, Long Scavenger Pipes that were mounted below the rear axle. Today, a lot of younger guys just redefine terms to suit themselves. Return to the Little Books for Time Specific history.... Centurion9
The raked cars originally were a west coast thing that was not as confused as we see here. If you thought skirts were part of the deal you were identified as "not from around here", and it was corrected pretty fast. There could be a radical, or mild, or a variation, but if it was down in front, it qualified. Unfortunately, the ravages of time continue to take it's toll, alas... misguided youth that need guidance.
Little known fact: The seat belt was invented by a guy in Calif. who had such a radical rake he kept sliding under the steering wheel.
Thanks, but I wanna at least nose and deck it. I'm also thinking about blasting the wheels, painting them yellow and buying a set of spinner hubcaps for them.
Hell, Benno...You could've seen it NITELY at John's Drive In in San Jose...in fact, if you were there one night in '63 (? Thereabouts) you could have seen the owner's (Jerry DeVeto's wife, Donna) pregnant...Jump out (with assistance from fellow Rod & Wheelers club members) as the air-cleanerless 292 belched fire, and melted the new restyled Gene's Body Shop front end..."Whoom!" Sat there and melted 12 lbs. of lead. End of an icon.
Growing up as a kid in the mid 60s in the Milwaukee Wi. area ,the "rake" was the stance gained by running larger rear tire. It had nothing to do with lowering the front. My cousin Bobby's 55 chevy was a perfect example . G78 14s on the front and H78 15s on the rear on 7" chrome reverse wheels and black wall tires. By the time I turned 16 in 1971 air shocks where all the rage and we got a little stupid! {me included} but I still the perfect rake is where you end up with 2 to 3 inches difference between the front point of the rocker panel and the rear point of the rocker, It provides the perfect hot rod stance . Must have larger rear tires and wheels. If the front is to low or it has skirts IMO something looks broke! Skirted cars should be level or dow just a touch in the rear! Anyway that's how my 60 year old mind see,s it. { but if you spent 45+ years sucking welding, bondo and paint fumes for a living you might see things differently too!! lol Larry
Actually the rake is still rake skirts or no skirts. The skirts just take away from the look on most cars. Really? So those guys on the salt with belts out of an airplane weren't really using seat belts?
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