I grew up with Ed Roth car models, now I'm buuilding my own real rods, I was just wondering if anyone built their rods with the coil front suspension like he used on the Mysterion. I did a search but not sure what to call it. Thanks for any help. Bob
I think Car Craft built a T-Bucket in the late 60's with that setup. I'm sure one of our more knowledgable members will chime in. Edit: Have I ever said Google is the shit? Here's a cool cutaway of the Car Craft T.
I think he meant the rear truck arm setup.... The car craft car is just a typical hairpin setup with coils instead of a buggy spring. You can see the panhard bar between the coil buckets in the drawing. I imagine the Roth car is set up similar.
The Mysterion uses 4-bar linkage (I think it is the first car to do that or at least it predates the street rod community ubiquitous use by many years), a pan-hard bar and frame mounted center steer rack and pinion. The axle is a Mor-Drop type early style dropped (heated and hammered) '41+ Ford axle of a axle with cups welded on the accept coil springs. The I-beam has been covered with welded plates to make the axle look like a solid rectangle. About the only feature of his setup that wouldn't be practical today is the shocks that were mounted horizontally from the axle to the frame for looks, zero function.
Neil Emory made a four bar linkage for Norm Grabowski in 1955. It was a lengthened copy of the setup used at Indy and some dirt track cars in the '40s... Tommy Ivo followed the 4-bar setup on his T bucket in '57. Nothing 'new', just an adjustable centering method. Are you sure about the axle being a '40-'48 Ford Ibeam? Can't recall the axle, but thought it was an aftermarket fabricated tube. Agree on the shocks' angle!
If the shock is not inside the coil spring, this type of suspension would require some positive attachment for the coils. Even a piece of flat stock just to remain the spring in the cup. A wishbone would be better than a panhard bar so there no side movement of the axle. For a rear suspension a true watts linkage would be even better to locate and eliminate any rear steer from the suspesion. John
Your points are all well taken; I would NEVER recommend a Mysterion suspension on a real car! However for emotional, visual impact, it spun a lot of heads in its day. As a piece of art, it is right up there with the best of them. I am building a reproduction of the Mysterion and the horizontal shocks restrict the vertical movement of the axle adequately to prevent the springs from flying out. I doubt I will ever drive it fast enough to grab air anyway!! As far as the type of axle is concerned, contemporaneous interviews with Ed quote him as saying the front axle is a filled, dropped 40s Ford. I have found in my research that magazine article descriptions of the construction of the car are totally incorrect for the vast majority but I have to go with a quote attributed to Ed as being correct. There just isn't any really good info on the car otherwise. All the (very few, poor quality) photos I have collected of the car seem to confirm that axle type. Also if you just look at the dropped ends of the axle they show that non-uniform, hand built shape of the classic Mor-Drop.