Years ago I seem to remember reading Lakes pipes were named after a shop owner in California (William?) Lakes and not referring to the salt flats. Can anyone confirm this?
I remember them being called lakes pipes from the catalogs and magazines of the day, the 50's and 60's that is. I even remember the original Little Deuce Coupe lyrics using lakes pipes. I had assumed it had to do with the flats but wondered why it was plural. Everything I find now use the term "lake". Maybe I am just suffering from old age or too much time on my hands or both.
That's them! Origin if I remember correctly was the good old dry lake beds of California.... They could be uncapped to run on the dry lakes, then capped up for the ride home. I recall seeing them in Hot Rod Magazine and in Rod & Custom when they were both still in the "small format"...
That would be kind of funny since Lake Speed was an 80's driver and the pipes had been around long before him.
Im pretty sure you are right Kennkat, I remember putting them on cars in the late 50's and up to run at the drags with open caps and on the street capped. We all pretty much thought that the idea had come from Muroc , El Mirage and such. Dave
Lake pipes were derived from "Cut Outs" which started out as gas tank filler tubes with chrome gas caps welded into the exhaust pipe, then to 2 and 3 bolt cutout caps near the front tire, then to 2 foot long cutouts that ran back to the car door then to long "Side Pipes" as they were called in So Cal. in the 50's. Lake pipes is a later late 50's name for them. Mostly used to make customs look lower not for engine performance, half the time they weren't even hooked into the exhaust. Larry Watsons Chevy was a cover car in the "Little Mags" and really got this "Side Pipes" ball rolling, everybody wanted to look like Warson's Chevy. It was a cigarette pack the, thin way, off the ground. A very slippery Kemp! Like this in the beginning. Here's cutouts and sidepipes on a Watson style car
Hello, When I took these photos of the purple Buick Sedan in the OC, it reminded me of those days in 56-57 when my brother was experimenting after he bought his first car, the pale yellow 1951 Oldsmobile sedan. He and his friends had sedans that were lowered, on a Cal Rake, and some were just stock, but with these pipes coming out of the front wheel well. All of those cars had exhaust cut outs as the midnight acceleration runs could be run open exhaust. It sounded very cool to me, when he uncapped the cut outs at home. But, I was given the job of capping them back, while crawling underneath the car. By the time the Lime Green paint came into being, the car was still legal with the CHP in the lowered stance, but with 4 teenagers inside, it was too low by the measuring standards. The lakes pipes would have made it much lower. 51 Olds with teenagers off to a cruise But over time and seeing other cars with these long chrome pipes running the full length of the car, my brother had our local welder/muffler guy connect them to the exhaust cut outs. Most of the cars in his group that had the long pipes running under the door back to the rear wheel had welded in pipes and the outside caps were the ones to easily un-cap or re-cap. Then they disappeared as fast as they were put on the sedans. Those pipes made the sedans lower and were the first things to scrape when going over a bump in the road, a dip at an intersection or the ups and downs at the local drive-in movie mini hills. One other thing made those lakes pipes disappear was the sound they made when the long pipes were uncapped. You would think it sounded like the short exhaust cut outs, but they made a sound like someone was squeezing their throats and sounded awful. We would hear 6 cylinder 53 Chevy sedan going down the road with different mufflers. The sound they made definitely was a 6 cylinder sound and these long pipes had created the similar sounds when uncapped. So, the powerful v8 motors sounded like rat-tat-tat of a 6 cylinder accelerating. That was definitely not cool. Easy to cap or open, but the sound they made was awful. Plus the fronts usually scraped ruining the nice chrome pipe. Sometimes it was the diamond shape exhaust caps that scraped first. Jnaki The purple Buick sedan had these unusual lakes pipes running the full length of the car. But, since it was parked on a public street, I did not want to crawl near the front custom pipe tunnel to see if they were connected to the exhaust cut outs. Photos were intrusive enough, but to have someone crawling around scrutinizing the car accessories was not cool. Some one mentioned air bags. When using these (no no on HAMB) it would provide a legal height for normal cruising and great security when lowered to the ground with no air. But, the owner of the Buick would have to come on the HAMB and tell all of us if the long pipes are connected and functional. The 1950s look in mild custom cars from So Cal. These days, it might be air bags to solve the scraping while driving and parking.
This thread brings back fond memories of a big regional meet at Orange ~60 or '61 which drew way more than average entrants and spectators resulting in a long line on the access road waiting to get in the gate. Street driven entries and spectator drivers that had 'em got their lake pipes un capped for "sonic drags" during the wait, quite the symphony for any gearhead's soul Ed
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