The Stance

This is also the reason I don't want to run 4.50's on the front of my roadster, even though I already have them. The tire ends up looking like a space-saver, it's just too small. I'm going to run 6.00's and 6.50's instead.

 

Great post !!!!!!!!

I spent a ton of time in the late 60s riding in a car just like this one ( my cousins car)

The stance was perfect and the 427 medium riser with two fours and solid lifters made the four speed car even more awesum. Most wouldnt even think of racing this car the stance and overall image made it look like superman.

Fact was this car wasnt fast running 14s etc but the stance made it ok.....

 

I was thinking the same thing as Malcolm, the front tire looks to small in diameter.

Just my two cents,

 

Yep, definitely a 'period' look...
Sorry to take your thread a bit off-track.

 

Ok, this is from 1964 and noted as being the first of the funny cars & that's a nitro powered burnout. Very similar stance to the 63 on the first page no?

 

Rumblin' thru the drive-in in 1963, this thing would be flat ass cool!!

 

don't forget circumstance.
sadsack

 

My buddy back in high school had a Belvedere that was just flat out bad ass. It had really nice paint and body work, the perfect agressive stance and one the coolest deep rumble exhaust notes I've ever heard. " the super man persona". Other than my GTO, his car would have been the only other car i liked for 5 counties. Guys were not to anxious to ask him for a race and he never challenged. Good thing too because that car was such a dog it couldn't get out of its own way.

 

Another thing concerning the first car.
If you wanna run those little wheels and tires the only thing you can do is nose high straight axle gasser style.As it is now the proportion is off. It looks like it's going to the suspension shop to get raised!

 

Yup, stance is EVERYTHING!!! I have owned some low power turds that I have shined up a bit, threw some wheels and tires on and dropped just enough and at the right ends that they look bitchin'. They always get noticed!

As far as the Galaxy goes, I have to say if it was mine it would have some 6" wheels on the front with a bit more tire both height and width, and be down just s touch lower in the back... But that's me.

To add to the Galaxy thought process I humbly submit MY favorite ever, and the one that truly "got away", the former possession of Mr. JEEM himself, the '64 that I missed buying by minutes almost twenty years ago...

 

As long as I'm taking a break and posting on a subject near and dear to my heart, there are a couple others to mention. One is an old race car that JEEM posted to Face Book a little bit ago, and has changed how I look at A/FX altered wheels base cars ever since.

Another, the Falcon is the driver and love of a fellow H.A.M.B.er "Soulsponga" that just flat nails it, and he has since replaced the Cragars with TRUs much like my late lamented wagon....

The last one is my true love, my dumbassed Plymouth that is featured so prominately in my avatar, back in happier days in the mid '00s out picking up parts for what ever the hell I was building at the time. This is this car's natural stance, not bagged or juiced, and has covered well over 200,000 miles at that height in almost every state.

 

Crap, we might as well hit one more facet here... The T-Bucket! Royal Shifter has it NAILED!!!

 

It packs that "come on challenge me" look very well.

I'd agree that putting the correct wheels and tires on a vehicle for the "look" you intend to achieve is one of the most important decisions in building a hot rod or custom and one that far too many guys miss the mark on. Usually it is because they choose to use "settled for" aftermarket wheels and the wrong size tires because that is what the tire store had in stock that fit the car and the budget. That is when a lot better look could have been obtained with a set of the right size steelies and a set of just the right size and look tires.

 

Hell, since I mentioned it and found a shot at the same time, my much missed and way lamented wagon.


Crap! Might as well throw Flat-and-Lows truck in there too, 'cause it sure fits!

 

I'd have to believe that Need Louvers is the Guru of "stance". That little Falcon Wagon is the poster child for getting it right.

 

I'm with you on that.My cars are almost always level with ever so slight of a rake.Most "jacked up" cars handle like shit and being a former rat racer,handling is just as important as acceleration IMHO.

 

The little T is T-bucket perfection

 

I have to agree with you, you certainly know your stanceology, I've seen the proofs! However, for 1963, with no drop spindles to choose from, I think they hit the mark. At that time the backs got raised, the fronts didn't get dropped to much on the average hot street car. I do wholeheartedly agree with your formula.

 

Nailing the LOOK is crucial to the overall aesthetics. Wheels maketh the car IMHO along with rake. A personal thing. When everything combines and you succeed, job well done.

 

I like a car to have flow and look like it is moving when it is standing still and try to incorporate that into my builds. The 63 definitely has that look. As far as the 5 spoke wheels, always a good choice.

 

Ditto!!!!

And BTW you guys, remember the old days cut coils got the front and sometimes the rear down.
Also, an era that never was cool was early 70's shackle lift and tires sticking outside the body.
I hope that NEVER comes back

 

Corvair with a great stance.

 

Whether that look was cool or not depends on where you lived. In Houston, in the mid 70's to mid 80's, the coolest cars had the front dropped and the ass raised. If someone behind you couldn't see the bolts in your rear end, then it wasn't high enough.

Then someone decided to paint the rear end, and leaf springs, white. All cool. For the time period. I wouldn't do it, but I'd like to see it come back. Actually, in some places, it has.

 

Great car (and I'ma Studebaker Man) stance is good,I like bigs n littles but this car needs bigger littles...

 

The OP's b&w image of the Galaxie is extremely cool. I like the stance and the smaller front tire is unique and looks quite good.

 

I agree, stance is everything, especially the view most people see...

 

There are a lot of guys looking at that period picture, through 2014 eyes.

 

In the late sixties-early seventies up here in Wisconsin, the only cars lowered in the front, might have been some dufus with a Mopar that turned the adjusters the wrong way. Front suspension was left alone, rear was raised up to 4". Stock sized tires on the front, L-60s on the back, so what if they stuck out.
On the OP car, I think they were trying to get a semi- straight axle look with a stock front suspension. Back then production cars handled like shit, and that one would be worse. Like several have said, it needs more rubber in the front.
I can only remember one local DD car in the early 70s that had been lowered. It was a 70 Boss Mustang that was lowered several inches and had the fenders flared so BFG TA radials would fit inside/under the wheel wells. It looked and handled like a Trans Am car that had escaped the paddock.