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I was talking to an engine builder friend of mine the other day, and the conversation ended up being about the peculiar breed of the custom car folk known as minitruckers.
You all are really a strange variety (of course I'm assuming that you are a minitrucker of some kind since you're reading this). Seriously though, what other custom car scene takes things to such extremes? Who else cares if their '50 Merc can lay a 30-inch wheel or if you can cut a '69 Camaro to the doors? If you see anything like that you can be pretty certain that it was a minitrucker that built it.
The way our conversation went was that from his perspective minitruck fabricators think that they are setting the bar for all other custom cars. I explained to him that from the inside looking out minitruckers ARE setting the bar for other custom cars. The body and paint work is in many cases comparable to ultra high-end customs, and the interior work can only be compared to the work that goes into some high-end custom import cars. But where minitrucks shine above any other custom and are only outdone by serious off-road trucks, is their suspension setups. Once I explained that to him, he understood where the ego came from, but of course didn't agree with the reasoning. It's a minitrucker thing; and if I gotta explain it to you then you'll probably never get it anyway. Actually, as I'm writing this it reminds me about another story of minitruck confusion from one of my suppliers. My buddy at King Shocks builds some of the nicest shocks available for off-road vehicles and it just so happens that one of the shock designs they have would work beautifully on a minitruck with only minor tweaks. When I explained to them that his single-tube bypass shock would work perfectly on a minitruck to help keep the truck from bottoming out, he said that I would be better off using a bumpstop. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to enlighten him on the need to lay frame but still drive low without bottoming out, before he gave up trying to understand what I was talking about and just did what I asked him to do. He made it quite clear that he was not interested in entertaining that conversation again and that I should just tell them what I needed and he would trust my judgment. Can you blame him?
I build vehicles of every type and style and for a diverse group of customers, and yet minitrucks remain the most fun because of their suspension desires. Even if one person owns a few different vehicles, the same owner will address their different vehicles as if they have vehicular schizophrenia. A perfect example is Ernie's 1950 Chevy and his Mitsubishi truck. His Chevy has a really nice straight-forward four-link and basic 'bag job, but his Mitsu has sheetmetal knuckles and arms, a hand-fabbed third member housing, custom IRS, tilt bed, and more. In my opinion, minitrucks are wild by necessity and "one-upmanship" drives the minitrucker to pull off some really wild suspension designs. I have been approached by many "designers" to critique their ideas and give them pointers as to how it might be made a little better, and many of those designs don't exist in any other genre and for good reason: they just don't work. I'm not saying this to be judgmental or rude, but just because something will hold the vehicle off the ground does not mean that it works. There is a certain amount of geometry that still needs to exist. Yet still, I am always inspired by their ingenuity and willingness to try something new, so everyone gets an 'A' for effort in my book. The perfect example of crazy for the sake of crazy is Mike Alexander's truck "Dragged Daily" Toyota that Aaron Iha is building. It is completely unnecessary but brilliant at the same time, and to top it off, it works (or at least has the potential to work). Really, it can be done.
So what is the next wild suspension design to take over the minitruck scene? What crazy feat of suspension ingenuity will we need to top next year? Hopefully it will be something that I build, but chances are good that it won't be. There are too many dreamers out there for me to contend with, and that actually brings a smile to my face. So until next time, keep dreaming up those crazy suspensions that keep us all inspired.