After: With just a handful of appearance mods, including an AAR 'glass hood, a '67 'Cuda flip-top fuel cap, reproduction stripes, and some trick Wheel Vintiques "Cruzer" mags mounting wide Firestone rubber, our Clark Kent Dart looks the part of a true Supercar.
Curb appeal. You've either got it or you don't. What does it take? That depends. A set of black steel wheels on a Six Pack Bee has it in droves. On the other hand, black wheels without caps on an Aspen look like you're slummin'. Mother Mopar was hip to curb appeal. Scoops and styled hoods, rallye or stylized steel wheels, stripes and decals ranging from the subtle to absolutely wild, flip-top fuel fillers, exhaust tips, hood pins, wings, and the list goes on; it was all there to convey the message of power. These were the things that outwardly separated the plain-Jane Darts, Coronets, and Satellites from the heavy hitters and visually backed up the power lurking within. Hey, if you've got it, why not flaunt it?
My '69 Dart Custom, with its bread-and-butter status within the Dart line, came with none of those factory appearance goodies. While the Swingers and GTSs had the stylized performance hoods, tail stripes, and optional wheel packages, this Dart was nothing but an average transportation car in its day. It had performance and chassis upgrades from stem to stern, but still looked like the regular old Dodge Dart your schoolteacher used to drive. There were the 15x7-inch cop wheels and the large OE-style dual exhaust tips, but to the average observer the suggestion of performance was lost. Want proof? As I waited in the crowd at the valet station at the end of last year's SEMA show, the Dart loped up with its distinctive cam-and-headers sound, trailing a procession of late-model rentals and SUVs. Tossing my bag into the trunk, I overheard, "Is that a six-cylinder?"
Before: Understated, sleeper, or downright dowdy, this '69 Dart is a radical street machine under the skin but just doesn't look the part.
While the sleeper look has its rewards, it was time for a change. A clone of a GTS or a Swinger would work, but since this Dart would never be the real thing, we decided to take a mild custom approach to upgrading the appearance. Borrowing from both the factory themes and the drag racing style of yesterday, our plan wasn't overly ambitious: just a few changes for achieving the traditional modified musclecar look. A fresh 'glass Six Pack hood from AAR Fiberglass, a GTS tail stripe from Performance Car Graphics, the new vintage-drag style "Cruzer" wheel from Wheel Vintiques, and a flip-up gas cap from a '67 Barracuda would give us a little respect. Drop us a line and tell us what you think.
Most musclecar fans seem fixated on stuffing as large a tire into the wheelwell as possible, and why not? Mopar musclecars are big and brawny, and look so right with serious meats tucking underneath. One of the trickiest parts of ordering a new wheel and tire combo is judging how much tire can be run before clearance problems spoil the fun. It isn't easy to know for sure without trying the tires and wheels for fit-something some custom wheel shops are willing to do to make a sale. On the other hand, if your new wheels are coming to the door via that nice man in the big brown van, you're on your own as far as determining the fit. One way is to look around at combos others are running on identical cars and follow their lead. Sometimes the only alternative is to break out the jackstands, crawl under the car, and do some guesstimating.
The finished install looks stock-looks trick too.
Figuring fit starts with determining the obstacles and gauging how much clearance is available. On the typical Mopar chassis, the first obstacle to the inside is the edge of the leaf spring, while outside we have the fender lip edge to contend with. Both these obstacles can be maneuvered for more clearance if you're determined. Leaf springs can be moved inboard with offset shackles or, more dramatically, with a spring relocation kit. Both of these mods require the spring perches on the axle to be cut off and new ones welded in a new location.
Want more? Here's where mini-tubs or tubs come in, both terms for modifying or replacing the inner wheelwell for more tire clearance. To the outside, the first interference is the fender lip. On most cars the inner fender lip angles straight back from the quarter-panel to join the inner fender in a pinch weld. The edge is usually rough, sharp, and in about the same position towards the tire's sidewall as a loan shark's straight-razor would be to your throat. The fender lip in the critical area above the tire can be "rolled" upward and back towards the quarter, yielding a good half-inch of clearance. For even more clearance, the fenders could be flared, a procedure popular in the '70s but generally frowned upon today.
With the filler out, the tank had a gaping hole, which had to be thoroughly sealed. We made a steel tube plug to seal it off.
Next to a trial fit, checking for clearance is best done using a wheel close to what will be run. On this Dart, we had 15x7 cop wheels and 235 60-15 tires all around. We wanted to run the 15x8-inch Wheel Vintiques Cruzer in the rear for a deeper "dished" look, but we weren't sure if it would fit. There are three measurements to be aware of when selecting rims. Obviously, the first is the rated width, 8 inches in this case. The width is the distance from bead to bead inside the rim. More important to fit is the overall outside width of the wheel, which for our 15x8-inch Cruzer is 9 inches. Next, there is the backspacing, or depth from the axle mounting surface to the outside edge of the rim. On the wheels we were considering, the spec was 4 1/2-inch backspacing, or right on the centerline of the 9-inch overall width. Our cop wheels have a 4 1/4-inch backspacing, so the new wheels would be 1/4 inch further in, and 3/4 inch further out, to make up the 1-inch difference in width.
Finally, we had the tires. Tiremakers give specs on their tire's overall width, or section width. Our Firestone 255s have a section width of 10 1/2 inches, meaning they'll bulge out 3/4 inch per side from the edge of our new 15x8-inch rims, which have a 9-inch overall width. We now have enough info to bolt up a cop wheel and see if the new setup will fit.
