Does anyone know when the suicide axle first came about? I was wondering about this but cant find any info about it. Doea anyone have any original pics of suicide axles pre- 50's? OR is this a sixties thing? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
For street cars one of the most popular would be Norm Grabowski's Kookie Kar, he started on it around 52?. There may be others and also may have been used on sprint cars. I don't think it really became that popular until the 1960's.
If suicide is raising the front crossmember, what do you call it when you mount the shackles to the split wishbones?
The books "The Birth of Hotrodding" (Genat) and "Drylakes and Dragstrips" (Batchelor) have pics of hotrods with suicide style frontends on PREWAR lakes cars.
My reply was referring to a front end with the suicide mount and a spring behind the axle. The suicide mount to lower a car goes back to the early Model T racing days.