No Mo' Low

[MikeS.]

Before spending time here I didn't particularly care for lowered trucks. But after hanging around here for a a while I've come to like them. But for me my stock height 4 x 4 is great.

[markeb01]

This subject interests me as I’ve seen it come full circle in my lifetime. As a kid reading the little hot rod books, tail draggers were popular in the late 40’s – early 50’s because it was cheap an easy. A set of long shackles could be made in shop class for next to nothing and drop the rear end until the axle hit the frame. Back in those days modified cars fell into two categories – hot rods or custom cars, and tail draggers were “customs”. Hot rods traditionally had big “pushing tires” in back and little “steering” tires up front.

As the 50’s developed custom guys could afford dropped axles or dropped spindles (or torched springs) and the whole car came down level. It wasn’t very practical however, and if a cop pulled you over everyone had to pile out before he could get a chance to measure, so the car would rise up enough to be legal.

Then the magical 60’s came along with the nose bleed gasser stance. I loved that period of automotive styling most of all. Stock height in the rear and nose jacked up was all the rage. I used up my share of coil springs spacers! And like all good things it came to an end when taken to ridiculous heights and cars fell over going around corners.

Time moved on and stock ride height seemed to come back into favor, until the current trend of slamming became popular again. At least now adjustable suspensions are available.

I never got beyond the old hot rod look, so most of my rides have had a nose down rake.









It could be argued my truck is actually higher in the front and it’s just the camera angle that makes it looked raked. But here’s a lousy shot where the ground is actually sloping downhill in the back and the truck is still nose down:



I prefer my own truck the way it is, but a lot of what I like about this forum is the variety of presentations. What I really like about the well done lowered trucks is some of the superb engineering that goes into making them work.

[pdxhall]

I'm old and banged up. I don't want to have to climb in or climb out of anything.

[jbgroby]

One problem with a rake that is too steep is that you can't place a cup of coffee on the dash - it don't sit right -

[supercharged]

You know you never see many "Gasser" style trucks either!

Just saying..............

[OsOdeDIABLO]

My long bed has a rake on it.-Jimmy-