A recent post about a '56 Chevy More door brought this to mind. I have always had a soft spot for sleepers, and the '56 would be a good candidate. Hot mill and looking pretty stock, easy peezy. Perhaps its because it used to be that those old grocery getters were closer to my budget than the really cool cars or maybe it is that I am just a sucker for a wolf in sheeps clothing. I have not been really good about documenting my life so I don't really have any pics of old cars that I have played with, but my favorite I think of all time was a '64 Chevelle 4 door that we stuffed a high winding 396 into. We didn't invest money in cool wheels and fancy paint. No reason it was just a granny car anyway, but it was fast. Now just because everyone likes pics this little tempest will fool you. Its stuffed full of beefed up 454. Soooooo fess up fellas who else likes a good sleeper or am I the only one.
I had a really roached out '63 Chevy 2 that I took in trade. The "rebuilt" 6 cyl engine that came with it turned out to be a painted up smoking junker. I had a spare 327 and 4 speed laying around so just slipped it in the Nova with the original rear end and 13" tires. I don't know what the stock rear end ratio was, but I sure fooled some people punching it in 4th at 50 mph. I love it when tailgaters finally decide to pass..................
I have a pair of fuzzy slippers,does that count? Seriously,the 63 Rambler Dennis & I built as teenagers with nothing more than a buzz box welder and more enthusiasm than brains was my first introduction to the world of hot rods and the ubiquitous sleeper. A free car with a blown engine(not a supercharger,blown as in blown up) and a cheap wrecked caddy,we were undeterred and shoehorned that engine and transmission into the small confines removing all the inner sheet metal and amazingly enough it ran strong and sorta stopped if you got on the brakes before they were actually needed. It is also amazing that original rambler rear end held up to the punishment we put it through but the tires were skinny and mostly bald. We street raced it a few times and took it to the drag strip and it ran pretty dog gone god,we emded up selling it to a guy we beat when ever we ran him. I still have a soft spot for cars that surprises the guy in the next lane that thinks his car is fast. HRP
I never did a sleeper, felt they would only be a sleeper the first time we went to town. I lived in a small town, news traveled fast.
I went to school with a kid who owned 2 '57 Chevies. One was a real sweet Bellaire 2 door hardtop, a 283 4 bbl car. The other was a blue post car that him and his dad adapted Bellaire trim to. The post car was the first car in town with a 350 in it and it was built to the hilt. Guess it was really not a sleeper unless you considered that the hard top car was not all that fast and after you beat him he would make an excuse to go home and meet you about dusk in the post car.
Yep those and Olds made a little car I think it was an F-85 ( the olds guys will know better). There was a '63 or so baby Olds that someone had shoehorned a 394 into when I was a kid that was a real screamer. Buick Specials too, about anything that no one considered to be hot rod fodder. That's the key, cars that get rodded a lot don't usually work but the cars that no one would consider for a hot rod are the real deal. I cannot find the pic but there was a hot rod magazine article from the early '50s about an A v8 that would have probably been a sleeper in its day. It looked pretty stock but when you opened the hood it had a flathead V8 under there.
To make this car into a sleeper, take off 3 hubcaps, use different color wheels all around with at least one with paint curling up and previous colors showing. The paint job is too nice too.
LOL I did an article on that car in the '90s and that is the original paint. I don't recall where the guy found it. Back in the '60s and into the '70s it was pretty easy to find an old car that all the paint needed was a little buffing or even just a waxing. Another car that would make a good sleeper would be about a 62 Comet and it wouldn't take a lot of motor to push it around.
Had a '56 Ford with factory T-bird motor. at one point was raised up front racer look, another time all lowered. so being bored went all stock look witb 6cyl emblems to be a sleeper. finally decided to sell and misplaced T-bird motor emblems. had Hell of a time trying to sell because everuone thought it was a 6cyl Sent from my SM-G930V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
LOL I lived in the Booming Metropolis of Longton, KS for a while. Everyone called the town marshal Sleepy, because you could find him sleeping at the only stop sign in town and any given time. He drove a 4 door '57 Ford with the factory blown 312 under the hood. I hadn't even thought of it until your post, now that car was a stone sleeper.
I had a 4 door Nova in the 80's that was. I loved it looked completely stock outside, had a built, balanced blueprinted 350, kitted turbo 350 with 2500 stall converter. Painted the performer manifold and performance heads chevy orange. so when the hood was popped all you could see different was the cal custom 14" air cleaner. That car ran 12.30's all day long. Shocked a lot of people. the weren't expecting "Your Momma's car" to move like that.
I'm 31 so nothing I'd consider a "sleeper" from my youth is actually cool. My dad has stories of coming into the city (we're but poor farm folk, the salt of the earth...you know, idiots ) and looking for races in whatever he had been running at the time and he come up against some dudes in a rotted out early 50's Cranbrook or some such Mopar. He seems to recall the rear doors being held shut with a ratchet strap. Well he gets enticed into a race, after all no rusty grocery getter is gonna put his duster/cornet/Beaumont down, right? Legend has it that hemi-powered POS crushed many a young man's pride.
LOL never really thought about it but I guess the Pusher counted as a sleeper. It was just daily transportation but it surprised more then one.
That Tempest is a TWIN TURBO car, with the turbos mounted at the rear of the cars exhaust. Lots more to it that just that, but it is very high dollar car all the way; not really what I would consider a sleeper. I'm building a sleeper out of a Biscayne 4 door sedan (3 years newer than the forum rules allow), full roller BBC (468), TH400 and a loose converter, 12 bolt with Positraction and 4.10 gears. My "old man car" version of a sleeper. Plain Jane, nondescript, 4 door. Even the Farm Truck has a tube frame/McPherson strut front suspension, close to 600 CID, and multi stage nitrous oxide engine. It has progressed to the point that it's out of the true sleeper realm. It does put on quite the show just the same. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.
Really? I pulled that pic from the old Pork n Bean magazine archives (circa '98 ). No turbos back then. There is one this that keeps the farm truck from being a sleeper in my mind, the slicks, well that and sleepers are street cars as a rule.
64 Tempest. A picture I saved a while back cuz I thought it would be cool to put a big inch motor in it.
I had a 55 F-100 with a LT-1 350 and turbo 350 trans, stock 392 rear end. Street raced it a lot back in the day, even thought every one knew me and the truck they still had to try it. A guy I workrd with bragged every day how fast his Road Runner was and I got tired of hearing it. I told him after work I would show him a trick, he said he wouldn't run me cause he was afraid something would fall off that old truck and he would run over it. I said something might fall off it and he would run over it cause he WOULD BE BEHIND ME! It got him down so bad when he lost and he got razzed so bad around town that he sold the RoadBummer shortly after. My son ran into this guy about 40 years after the fact and the X-RoadRunner guy told him about me blowing his doors off back in the day with that old piece of shit truck. I beat a lot of fast cars that I shouldn't have just because they set at the line burning rubber while I come out of the hole easy before I jumped on it. I am going on 66 now, my project now is a 65 Buick Gran Sport with a built, cammed up, dual quad 455 Buick with a 4 speed. Does that make it a sleeper?
Social media killed the idea behind sleepers. Back in the 70's, the guy with the HEMI Dart knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Farm Truck meets the definition of a street sleeper. Doubt too many HAMB vehicles could give it a run for its money.
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