| I don't know about you, but when I was a lad messing about with old cars (as you did) I could never get past the first weekend without fiddling with something under the bonnet.
A set of extractors from the local wrecking yard, a Bosch GT-40 coil (remember them) whatever it was, I had to mess with it in the name of better performance.
Even when a few more dollars were at hand some years later, it was still the engine that used to get my fullest attention with multiple carburetors, a head skim, lumpier camshaft and maybe even bigger pistons if you tore it down completely.
Hell, I'm still at it and the half-finished VH Charger in my shed right now is alarmingly standard otherwise considering it's running what amounts to a full Bathurst-spec 265 Hemi.
But it seems I'm old school these days, because there's a whole car culture out there that isn't interested in the least with what's happening under the lid.
I met up with a bunch of mini-truckers the other day; young guys some of whom had invested thousands in their vehicles but who had no desire whatsoever in making the things run harder.
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The big ticket items were shaved bodywork and trick paint, 20-inch wheels and tyres and air-bag suspension kits that could raise and lower the truck through about 40cm.
But don't start thinking these guys weren't into the engineering side of things. Oh no, just to air-bag a small ute with standard leaf rear springs requires chopping out those leaves and grafting in a four-link set-up for axle location.
Come to think of it, maybe they could give me a few tips on getting my Charger to ride and handle. And, in return, I could give them the skinny on how us old blokes make a car really go.
One thing hasn’t changed, though; one of the lads I was talking to had had no fewer than 15 canaries slapped on his car in the last couple of years. Seems the wallopers don't make any distinction between the various styles of modified cars. They just seem to hate them all.
David Morley,
Editor |
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