Customs Opinions on wheels, tires, and drop..

Ok...I’ve always been a Wheel Vintiques Series 64 kind of guy... but lately Astro Supremes keep coming up. I wanna change up my 61 Chevy this Spring and Moose was kind enough to do these for me.. I’m thinking the budgets calling for thin whites..I was thinking cut the coils, but I’ve discovered some affordable lowered springs..do I go 2” or 3”? car has a BBC in it now and rides great, but it needs an altitude adjustment to go with the nosed, decked, shaved, exterior..I’ve attachedapic as it sits and the pics from Moose..I’ve also added some inspiration pics...I know it’s a Biscayne...not a hardtop...but it’s in the garage, runs great, and sounds like a super stock drag car..

 

Supremes and bellflower exhaust is the cats ass !!
That’s got my vote !

 

It’s your car..do it your way, but from experience. I wouldn’t go more than 2”. 3” or more and the chance of problems goes up by 100. Again...just my experience. I’ve lowered probably 4-5 cars, and 2” seems to be best unless your redoing the frame and total geometry deal. 3”+ just never turned out well for ride and turning and such for me, but I just changed springs and that, I didn’t cut the whole front end apart and redo the geometry.

 

i think it looks great just the way it is, but i am just an old grouch

 

I think the best look is the one you have now. It looks like a bad ass sleeper car. If I saw that on the road I would think maybe it has a 409 in it.

 

I like the current look also, but with the door handles back on it.
I would like to see a photoshop with Cragar SS's and blackwalls.
Nice car.

 

I agree if the door handles and badging was still on it would be getting the Super Stock look..and yes the 454 in it gets with the program and draws a crowd when it fires up..its just a little confused in its current state..and I’m a mild Kustom guy..I not doing belflowers..I’d like to do sneaker pipes like Marks car.

 

I have this on the garage to satisfy my Super Stock Jones....just haven’t had a car without whitewalls in a long....long time..

 

I like black tires and cars above ground.

 

No more the 2", 1" would be better. Chrome reverse with blackwalls. Gene

 

I'm a big fan of good old chrome reversed wheels and blackwalls

And NO drop it looks good like it is.

 

I have soft spot in my heart for 61 Biscayne's had one in the 60's, if I ever got another one I would lower it a little and go with 15" and 16" American torque thrust wheels with the rears deeper dish and put the old style two prog knock offs. But this is your car and you need to what you like, I just dreaming about the great 6o's and the way we did our cars.

 

Like these....

 

wide whites and chrome reverse and some drop!

 

if it were mine I'd raise the front about 3-4" and the rear about 2-3"...oh yeah and put some grey five spokes on it.

 

I’ve had this one in my files for a bit...but my car already has been nosed, decked, handles shaved, sunken antenna..it’s to far gone to go back to the drag car look..it’s already headed for the mild Kustom route.. to late to go back now!

 

I'm liking this version a lot. It's both muscular and custom at the same time...and it's plausible to the Sixties. These cars have big wheel openings and need a lot of wheel/tire to fill them up properly as has been done here. The roll bar in this one is the icing on the cake to "set" the theme. What's even better is that this car has no striping, stupid exhaust pipes, 'flake roof or other trendy garbage to take away from the clean body lines. I like it!

 

Get rid of the painted wheels and dog dishes fast. Living the life then, without a nostalgia filter, no dude fresh out of high school back in the early sixties would have been caught dead sporting those. It's "traditional" to get those wheels off the car as fast as possible and stack 'em behind the garage. There was a wheel hierarchy back in the times. Chromes were for entry-level dudeness (but they have the "right" look). Alloys were the stuff of dreams and Dude Royalty.

If you are enjoying the ride comfort now, make any drop a small one...... unless you know for a fact you will get more payback standing around looking at it instead of getting your jollies driving it.

 

Ok first Marks 61 is killer...timeless...and I’m posting a pic of a couple boxy Ford’s..one Larry Watson did..nothing trendy about whitewalls..skinny or slightly wider..some cool paint work...I’m not going metalflake, endless lines, lowrider....I’ve got my “drag look” car... I want a low rolling cruiser...and I see way to many Americans at my local cruise night...like em..have em up front on my Falcon ...but can’t go wrong with chrome steel wheels...
Thanks for all the feed back fella’s

 

For some reason I don't care for 5 spokes on it. Any of the more solid wheels.

 

My opinion would be lower, narrower white walls (don't have to be pinners either, just not real wide ww's), and chrome reverse wheels.

As Mark said above, some of @Phillips chrome slots would also be bad ass on there and have the correct look. Especially with a cool set of center spinners.

 

Sancho and Mark...I like those suggestions

 

If you are shooting at custom Astros or Chromies with skinny whites pretty much scream the '60s.

If you are looking for the street brawler thing then Chromies or Americans and black walls or skinny whites up front and black walls in the rear do it for me. Fat rears and stockish up front and down in the snout. Well that was my style anyway. I would usually find fat black walls for whatever I was driving and leave the fronts until I had money.

 

So you want a mildly customized hot rod. Or a hot-rodded mild custom. That red Imp and those 2 Fords look great with bigs and littles and a slight rake. Chrome reverse wheels with medium whites lend a little '60's toughness to me.

 

Yep....that’s it a Mild Kustom with some attitude...Marks got plenty of carbs on his 61...I’ve got plenty of cubes in mine haha..and yeah I like a little rake...may just cut the coils to see how it looks and rides. And as much as I’d like to spend the money on some bias ply whites my current budget wont allow it. I’ve found some 1.3” for a reasonable price locally

 

From my experience cutting one coil is good and two is the max if you actually want to drive it.

If you want to see approximate drop slide under here with a tape measure and measure the distance center to center on the coils. You may end up with a little bit more than the tape shows but it will ballpark ya.

 

Right outta high school a friend had one. We lowered it with stock 4 cyl S10 springs in front and IIRC cut springs in the back (I know...). It sat great and rode nice.