Unlikely...The art of a good sleeper.

OT perhaps...

1980 4dr. Mercury Zephyr, rusty fenders a flappin', brown with woodgrain trim, and a 460 c6 combo....sleeper. My Tbird not so much a sleeper, but it'll have a Ford "boat anchor" for power. And should fool just about anyone. I hope.

friend's dad had a 1947 Ford pickup with a 9" and 430 MEL, and lost a few tri-fives at the stop lights, so he says.

 

That's cool!!

 

Two of my "Sleepers" I sold this year. 1st is a '63 Custom 300, orig paint with a 428/4sp. Put the name"SERTA"..The Perfect Sleeper across the windshield. 2nd is a '63 Country Squire FACTORY 4 speed with a (now)428/3x2s/shortys/4:11 rear. Only pix I could find, has stock 15" wheels now with wsw & 15"/427 hubcaps .
I agree with the guy that said sleepers are only sleepers once on the street and I love seeing "true-sleepers" like the Pintos & Chevettes. Back in my days, NO ONE would be caught dead in a Rambler and no one caught the Nerd that put a 375HP.Vette motor in one either!! He first got it for the fold down front seat to go to "the finger bowl" (Drive-in). Tom

 

Oh yes, before I put the pin-striping and name on the '63, I put 289 flags and it has those great electric exhaust cut-outs. Most guys just can't stand it having a 409 or 427 under the hood and not letting someone know it!! Not me....let the ET speak volumes and keep the hood & mouth shut. Tom

 

In the 70's I had a 62 Impala 2 dr with a bench seat and 283 badges. Put a 425hp 409 in it. THen in the 80's I had a faded out 70 el camino with 307 badges. Stuffed a 455HO Pontiac and TH400 in it. both of em were a whole lotta fun.

 

My only hotrod at the moment is my jeep grand cherokee. 4 liter import eater. funny watchin the fart canner's scratch their heads after I let 'em catch up then i punch it and pull away again. No after market parts here, old school hot rodding. Know how it works and build it yourself. Bored the throttle body, built my own cold air intake, junk yard ford mustang injectors, factory 3.73 gears, cut 2.5" out of the coils to lower it, made my own throttle body spacer. A few resisters to fool the computer. Near 200k on the motor and still running strong. A bit O.T. but it's all I have for now. I'll take donations, if anyone wants to donate a pre '64 car or truck I'll hot rod it, and post pics.

 

I think my '60 NewYorker can qualify as a sleeper.
The doorcount seems enough, paint is a brush-applied 'Boring Green', 2inch whitewalls on 14" wheels on the front, 15's on the rear. Only the reartires are 275/60, which could blow my cover

Engine is a 500ci with a period original long ram intake-system. 84cc Edelbrock heads. H-Beam rods and 10.2:1cr Diamond pistons on a balanced crank ***embly. Hydraulic cam is 2 steps larger than stock with 1.6 rockers. The cam will be replaced soon by a higher lift roller cam.
Stock push****on '64 transmission, 3.91 gears in the rear.

Car has done a best of 8.6 ET on the 1/8mile with a 1.88 @ 60/ft.
Couldn't stay on it for the full 1/4mile. Had to lift at the 1/8mile marker because of a driveshaft imbalance, but mid/high 13s look easy, for a 4300 lbs car...

 

That New Yorker is COOL!

 

Sweet New Yorker!!

 

The engine and trans in my roadster was in my '82 S15 before this. Before the blower it all fit under the hood and suprised more than a few vettes and mustangs. After the hole in the hood for the blower the game was up. Even better was my stone stock '76 Suburban 2wd with a factory 454. The lanes were merging due to construction and the Porche Boxter next to me at the stoplight needed to be in my lane in a hurry. The way he was gunning the engine I knew he thought he'd get ahead of me. After the light changed and he had to pull in behind me I let him around the next block and he gave me a thumbs up as he went by.

 

So is this one going up for sale any time soon? What a nice hot rod that would make..love the weird and unusual.

Scoob found this one. I guess it was ordered from the factory with a 402/4speed and the owner went "hunting" quite often.



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Back in '76 I was cruising in my Yellow 70 Boss 302. Mostly stock except for headers. Ran pretty good. I was at a light and a big old white Chrysler 4 door full of teen age boys pulls along side of me. It had Keystone wheels but other than that it looked stock. The light changed I wasn't going to race them but the drive put his foot in it. I thought what the hell. I had a hell of a time catching up. I finally got around him but just barely. It took a lot of road to do it. He must have had a 440 in it. That was one of the toughest races I ever had in that car.
At one point in time I had the car repainted after it was in an accident. I had the body shop leave off the Boss stripes and semi gloss black paint. Just yellow. Still had the black slats, spoiler and shaker hood scoop. I had a set of old skinny bias belt tires on rusty steelies on another car. Took off the wide Goodrich TAs and put those on the car and took off the wing and slats. The only thing that would give the car away was the shaker hood scoop that said BOSS 302 on it in mylar letters. Other wise it looked kind of boring and tatty. Went for a little drive.
I was in Hopkins, a small town-suburb of the Twin Cities. I come to a light and there's another Boss 302 sitting there. He had all the stripes and trim. He says "Is that really a Boss 302?" I said "yep. Just like yours." Light changes and away we go.
I thought it would be close but I dusted him pretty good. Suprised me and him too I imagine. My engine had been rebuild, Bored and blueprinted so that must have been enough.
True sleepers are awesome

 

Your idea for your 56 sounds kool. My 53 is not what I would call a sleeper, but it runs pretty good for what it is. Be careful with those 3 spd overdrives. I have ****tered 3 of them since I pulled the 6 and put a mild 312 in it. They don't like to be beat on. I would at the very least try and find a later overdrive, they are a little harder to break...

 

It's not a hamb worthy car but was a sleeper none the less.

The II was my first car, and progressed from a stock 302 ghia car, to a mid 10s street/strip car.

In the picture it would run mid 11s, and would hook on the track or the street. Only until the track required me to have a roll bar did it finally loose it's sleeper look... Now it has draglite rims, and no hood due to different taller engine.

I still miss the sleeper days.

 

haha I grew up in pittsburgh and have almost lost my accent. but I still recognized it even before the announcer said Kennywood. GO STILLERS!

That Tempest is amazing, I saw a Super Duty 421 at a recent show and had to snap a picture, because you are right, who would race it?

 

Factory 4 speed Sleeper

 

In 1996 I built a 61 Rambler for a customer from the Merced area. We installed a complete 280ZX front suspension to help open up the little Rambler's engine bay. Then, in went an AMC 390 and automatic out of a Javelin. The customer had never heard the engine run, but he thought it had some "go-fast" parts in it.

When the swap was done and he fired the engine, it sounded like all hell coming to breakfast...go fast parts, indeed! I never found out what was done to the engine, but that little car hauled ***.

We tried to make all the modifications fit the car, and the nicest compliment we got was when someone would look under the hood and say something like "WOW, I never knew Rambler built these with a V8!".

 

LOL, that's great

 

This thread is making me want to build a 347 for my Falcon!

Not really a sleeper, per se, but unexpected nonetheless - I always wanted to build a ‘77-‘81 Pontiac Catalina with a hot 389 and a 4-speed. It would be faster and more appropriate with an LS-series, but I think it would be cool just to get to drive the equivalent of a ‘60s Super Stocker every day and feel no guilt about salt and parking lot rash.



Oh and a ‘60s 2-door with poverty caps and six-cylinder badges may not fool anybody anymore, but they’re still damn cool.

-Dave

 

The AV guys Geek Sleeper. Had a friend in highschool that was into electronic stuff, HAM radio, reel to reel sound recording, Hi Fi, and other stuff. He also had a love of drag racing and the sounds ***ociated with the strip. He would go on Sundays set up his recording devices and record different cl***es of cars. This was in the mid 60 so his equipment was large ad ***bersome. He hauled it around in a 62 Rambler station wagon. One day he was rigging an amp and speakers into it so he could listen to his drag racing taps at real volume. This was also during the days when Friday and Saturday night street drags were very common and stop light challanges were standard operating procedure for any one with a car except for the geek in the rambler wagon.

This is when the idea hit, did some editing of taps and recorded them onto an 8track, routed the 8 track through his guitar amp now powered by the Ramblers cigarette lighter, then out through the under fender mounted speakers.

Instant street cred. Slide up next to the mustang or chevelle, select he right track, and blow the guy away with recorded blown altered header sounds, guy in the other back down or roars away, either way Rudy would drive the Rambler up to the next light with a big grin on his face, and his quiet littel rambler ready for another amplified show down. Great fun and thing of all the gas we saved.....

 

Back in the 80's I was into v8 vegas. Normally not sleeper material. I built a 72 Vega GT with a 327 / powerglide to look like a factory build. It had factory decals and air cleaner as well as stock exhaust manifolds that were cleaned up and opened up as much as I could on the inside. The dual exhaust was tucked up as far I could get it. I put a 10 bolt / 3.55 in the back with boxed control arms. I had the drums redrilled to 4 lug. From the outside the car looked looked like a factory Vega GT. Even running it wasn't that obvious, especially to the uninitiated.

This little beast was a blast to drive. With the frame connectors, sway bars and decent shocks it rode and handled really well. Without the headers there was no need for the usual ground clearance so I cut a bit off of the Monza front coils and brought it down to a factory like stance. The 327 was built up a little with double hump heads, a bit of a cam and a decent intake / carb. With slicks I would guess it would be good for a mid 12. On the street it surprised many a camaro and firebird owner.

I sold the car to a local kid in 1985. Where it went from there I don't know. But I would love to get it back. On the other hand it would be a lot of fun to do it all over again. Even have a decent body shell available.

 

used to be a guy that ran around in a black vega and he actually has 2 one was regular 4cyl. and other one was a cosworth and they were identical as he had purchased them new, his and hers. you would check out stock one and he always had to make a warmup drive around the block and had the cosworth waiting to switch then. took us some time to figure out he was switching cars. he had beat the local cops kid brother and a few minutes after racing stoped him and the plates and vin didn't jive. pretty slick deal until car got impounded and he almost lost his car.

 

I was surprised to find out it was the same one as it is a bit different now since this post of it by 37Nash.

So what your saying is Rob just likes to take credit for it as it helps his career as a "professional land speed car builder" while trying to mask the fact he has no experience in building anything .... This sound familiar ???? Just do yourself a favor get paid up front if you deal with him, and say a little something for anyone that rides in anything this guy ever does try to build himself.

 

well here in oregon, at a eugene car show a couple years back there was an all stock 56 ford convert. yellow and black 2-tone, with lake pipes and smithys.....well anyway I was looking at it, and the guy opened the hood and there it was, a 427 OHC cammer motor with dual 4's!!! I didn't here it run though! man that changed me!

 

Here's video of the tempest,love that thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVKt1rebIi8&feature=related

 

How about a sleeper bike riders? As I was waiting at the starting line at Bonneville this year for a friends turbo straight 8 Buick powered 85 Jaguar to make a backup p*** I noticed an elderly lady & gentleman in leathers walking around, she was 71, he was 82. He proceeded to run 226 on a turbo Hayabusa and she ran 209 in a normally aspirated Hayabusa. Shocked doesnt quite cover what I felt after watching them, I wanted to cheer out loud for them. No offence to them but they looked like they had escaped from a rest home, more power to them, both kinds of it.

 

I think the car is cool too, matter of fact that's how I found out he owned it while talking about his Lemans, I mentioned this video after seeing the Maxton Mile pictures of the same car which is now caged , and the the grilles are capped. Ironically it was his car, which the engine didn't last long by the way.

Now on the other hand taking credit for work you didn't do and promoting yourself as a professional builder in a dangerous sport such as land speed racing is not cool. A 300mph lakester is not something to learn on. I met this guy when he drug a bent salt flat car into a friend's shop and it went down hill from there.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3IuTIDnaV0

 

Last year High Performance Pontiac featured a car along these lines - a guy's 77 Catalina drag car. Had a 455 in it - bolts in in place of the 301 most came with. I thought about doing the same thing when I had a '77 Buick LeSabre, which is the same car. They actually weigh a couple hundred pounds less than a Camaro, according to the ***le.

I thought about it again when I had an '87 Pontiac wagon for a driver - junk the 307 and swap in an Olds 425. Ended up parking it for a real 455 '72 Pontiac instead.

 

My current fave:

http://gonedragracing.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=272&pos=162

 

My daily driver...