A goodly number of spleens have been vented on donks here, on more than one occasion. I try to see them in the same light as all customization trends since that concept was invented in the 1910s or so: the desire by (mostly) young men to stand out from the crowd and be noticed, as that demographic is so typically wont to do. And that almost inevitably means doing things that the older generations will likely scorn; that is largely the whole idea, right? Well, maybe not always, but think Rat Fink, Barris Kustoms, and most of the other ludicrous customization fads of the late 50s and 60s.
Although I try to be non-judgmental about donks and other customizations, and appreciate that it may well be keeping a lot of old cars alive on the streets, I don’t always like looking at them, except for their sheer audaciousness (when they actually deliver that). But this Skylark, posted by Eric Clem, grabbed me in a way just about no other donked car quite ever has before. I quite like it.
For starters (obviously) the chrome-on-black theme is unified on the whole car, and the chrome spokes are not too overpowering. For that matter, the wheels are actually not absurdly large, given the sidewall-less tires (are they really pneumatic, or just solid rubber?). The stance of the Skylark is only modestly changed from stock, unlike some out there. Donk-understatement.
The spokes evoke the elemental wheel. And the design and shape of the automotive wheel has of course evolved since the wagon wheel days; during the sixties, it was about as small as it ever got, with proportionately the “tallest” tires on them. Since then, the wheels have gotten bigger again, the tires “shorter”. These wheels take that evolution all the way back to the point of the beginning. OK; all that’s rather obvious. What’s the point, already?
As I look at this car, I imagine the reverse course of evolution: that wheels started out small with big, puffy tires, and peaked in the mid-sixties with this. With that mindset, it doesn’t really look that strange, does it? In fact, these wheels look like they really could have been stock. It just means we have to throw out out the deeply-held conception of what the “right” wheels for this car are, or were, in its time. If you had never seen the cars of this era before, and someone showed you this car, do the wheels really look all that garish or inappropriate? I happen to think not. Maybe my imagination is a bit more limber than yours, but I find that these wheels work rather well with this car, at least visually. I’m not so sure about the ride quality, but then this is strictly a visual exercise.
So is this accidental or on purpose? If the latter; I applaud the owner for their good taste in imagining a Skylark from an alternate universe, where wheel-evolution rolled in reverse. Now try to imagine a current car with 13 inchers…
Yes, those spokes DO look weird. And I have never understood painting a car in flat black so it looked like you primed it and couln’t afford the finish coat. But at least this car is intact and alive, and things could be put back when these fads expire.
Please get rid of those ghetto Calistoga wagon rimz’ on this car. They really totaled the look of the car. I’d rather have the fat tires and hubcaps that came originally. Just my weird taste.
Conestoga is the word you are looking for.
I’d be looking for the word a sailor who trapped his fingers in a door would use
Really, the only detail that doesn’t work here are the “gills” behind the front wheels – not bad, otherwise.
I agree with your premise, too. “Every car is a canvas,” is the thought that keeps coming to mind when I or others here post oddball vehicles here. While a particular vehicle (and the mods imposed on it) might not be my cup of tea, it’s still someone’s means of expressing themselves (and often who or what they identify with).
Donkers probably turn their noses up at what passed for popular when I was in highschool (jacked up wall of rubber out back, skinny tires up front), but the reality is that one is not more “right” than the other, they are just different ways of painting different pictures.
The difference is, the California rake with fat-n-skinnies served a purpose, even if it was limited to the dragstrip. Granted, an otherwise bone stock 307 Cutlass cant really capitalize on it but it at least goes with the car. Donks don’t look like much of anything.
Hate to be a boring old Lexus Driver, but my rule of thumb for wheel size is the diameter should not exceed 25% of the vehicle’s year of manufacture.
E.g. A ’66 Skylark should not have wheels larger than 17″ in diameter.
Your rule of thumb now has me imagining a 1932 Duesenberg with 8″ wheels. 🙂
Good point, there should be a cutoff for that rule. Post War only. Obviously the classic era cars were designed for giant wheels.
Sounds like it works well for 1957-1999 models, not so much for anything much older and not at all for anything 2000 or newer.
A ’48 Buick’s gonna look pretty silly on 12″s… just sayin’.
As practicality goes, that wheel/tire combo is, well, sad. The infrastructure decline has produced so many tire and suspension killing potholes, I’m afraid this Skylark won’t see many miles before one of those outsize things fail. Not to mention the resulting horrible ride. There is a reason for fat tires; they are an integral part of the suspension.
I like the satin black body, tho’.
ConstantReader:
Edit:
“There is a reason for fat tires; they are an integral part of *the car’s looks*.”
Whatever else we can say, the flat black paint and the unusual wheels certainly make you look at the car with fresh eyes. I see all of the Chevy Malibu in the side view, and some of the Cutlass in back.
It just now occurs to me what served as inspiration for the taillight treatment on the 1970 Galaxie/LTD.
Ugly , pure stupidity. Those over sized wheels look foolish , and serve no purpose
Although I could do without the wheels, the rest of the car looks awesome!
I’m not a big fan of large wheels like that but if that’s what made the owner get rid of the fender skirts, then it’s a good move! I don’t hate all cars with fender skirts but those on the ’67 Skylark certainly didn’t make it look better!
Old Man rant here :
YARGH ! get the thing off my lawn ! .
I agree , too many pot holes mean broken wheels on these .
-Nate
Has anyone noticed how the tire sizes that were common on these cars have largely disppeared/or become cost prohibitive in relation to larger sizes? You can’t find large (e.g 225/75/14) tires easily, and don’t even THINK about in whitewall! 15″-16″ tires are cheaper to buy nowadays, and it seems that 17″-18″ are even more common. My Honda Fit Sport has 16″ tires on it, whereas the UPSIZED 15″ wheels from my ’89 Accord look tiny in comparison! I personally DESPISE these type of wheels on the (Classic?!) cars of MY younger days, but I realize that the current owners have a different vision from mine. I have seen them used with restraint to acieve a good look, but I can’t find anything to like about this one. 🙂
I think Cooper might still make a 225 75 14 white wall.
Cooker tire.
Or just get some Vogues and a subscription to DUB magazine. 😛
I’ve tried to be open minded but I hate seeing classics stuffed up like this.I bet it wouldn’t go down well at the owners club!
Fugly, just plain fugly. Ugliest set of wheels I`ve ever seen, even worse than those “spinners” from the early 2000s. Must be a very hard ride with those anorexic looking tires.
I believe the kids call this “murdered out” when the car is black on black on black on (did I mention?) black.
Back when I was living in Detroit (2001 or so) there was a new Deville in my apartment complex that had large (for the time) 20 in wire wheel spoke rims on it. The tires were constantly flat because a rim would get bent from a pothole or some other imperfection.
Almost. ‘Murdered out’ is when its just about ALL black. Like 98%. Whoever owns this car likely doesn’t know what he’s trying to do. He’s seen a few rat rods, a few cars murdered out and possibly Mad Max. But doesn’t quite know how to pick a look and own it. At least that’s what Im seeing.
I don’t mind the wheels; they’re not my favorites by any means but they look a darn sight nicer than a lot of the big chrome wheels out there that look like they were designed by an alien, or by someone who wanted to add on as many fake bolt heads as possible. And I quite like the flat black treatment. Agree–it’s an understated donk.
No, not practical, and he’ll probably bend a rim or pop one of those rubber-band tires before too long. But it’s better than a lot of cars done in this style. And can all be taken back to stock once the fad passes! A car like this would probably find a good home anyway, but I think the donk/hi-riser style has probably kept a lot of 70’s and 80’s iron on the streets that might have ended up scrapped or driven into the ground otherwise, so in a way it’s good for the hobby…
Most “modding” treatments invariably have ride/safety/durability issues. Slammed cars scrape. The jacked-up rear-end cars of my youth handled horribly. Donks with huge rubber-band tires handle bad and break easily.
And yet, we still do these things… (c:
Depends on how you jacked em the cheap way long shackles was lethal played hell with castor angles and could be downright dangerous, if you were only lookin for straight line acceleration it was ok but blosking the axle below the springs was lots safer, they still didnt handle though
“No, not practical,”
Personally I can handle impractical as long as it looks and/or performs better. This is worse in both cases, Im afraid.
“Most “modding” treatments invariably have ride/safety/durability issues. Slammed cars scrape. The jacked-up rear-end cars of my youth handled horribly. Donks with huge rubber-band tires handle bad and break easily.”
Impoperly done, youd be right, Ed. If you rake a car to a point and beef up with swaybars then you’ll offset the handling issues. Wider rears will help keep it planted, actually. Although that mod is more for the 1/4 mile anyway. Lowered vehicles ride harder and scraped but will take a corner like a madman. Done that twice (mild lowering for performance/handling not ‘slammed’) and WELL worth it. Lift kits on 4x4s can accelerate wear if driveline angles get outta wack. Ive seen good ole boy engineering that would downright terrify a man. But dialed in, the flexibility and clearance offroad are again well worth it. Some even handle BETTER after a mild lift. Counterintuitive, but true. Done that like 4 times. What sets all these apart from donking is that these may make a vehicle look better and likely only done for that reason but they were designed to specialize them for a particular purpose. Donking only serves to donk.
Well, you can’t compare throwing some big-ass rims on a rather stock looking car to anything Barris did.
Still, from a looks perspective, I’d tend to agree with Paul. But style is one thing, and as others have mentioned the pure impracticality of those wheels is another.
It could be better compared to low-riders that are so low they can’t clear a speed bump.
Hideous, and besides what is unique about it. Years ago someone donks a car with 22″ rims and before long 500,000 cars are copying the same look sans originality. So in essence when you have seen one you really have seen all. They are worth a good laugh though.
Oh, and for the comment that it can be taken back to it’s original look by removing the rims and flat black paint I would say that is a big maybe. One needs to see the interior in order to know if it has been drastically modified also. Restoring an interior back to original is a lot tougher and I have seen some that were not possible.
And that’s assuming the interior wasn’t trashed when whoever did this found it.
I’m almost there. The murdered-out black with the window tint makes it look a little menacing. I like the design of the wheels, too…more conservative folks could think of them as a much-simplified distillation of the Buick road wheels. The decorative brake vent looks like it could be (from) a real ’67 GS, for what it’s worth. I think the look would be even better if the car were a bit lower; that would be more consistent with the speed and menace the wheels, paint, and slight rake suggest. So this time the donking is just too much of a basically good thing, rather than clown shoes on a big car.
But that’s all off if it has a Pep Boys steering wheel and seats from a 1982 Regal. That would be a car you can’t drive OR sit in.
“The murdered-out black with the window tint makes it look a little menacing”
Personally, I don’t see this as menacing at all. It looks neutered to me, since this kills performance. Im betting this has about a 307 under the hood…2bbl and single exhaust even. If you want ‘menacing’ this car very well could be. Keep the flat black, black out all the chrome, get grammas silverware off the front fenders and get something under the hood breathing thru full duals and cherry bomb extremes. Dump the nose a bit, add some 15×7 black D-slots up front, 15 X 10s out back and anyone with half a brain will know this car meant business. In other words, look good and hard at Mad Max’s Interceptor and draw some inspiration.
I like it. I think it works because a) Someone thought about the whole concept, as opposed to “what do I have to do to get 22s on this thing”, and 2) The wheels actually fit inside the wheel wells.
I go to a lot of local car shows during the summer. The “customs” that catch my eye are unique and well thought out as a total concept. There are very few of them; most are just restomod cliches.
Truly heinous in my book, yet to each his own. I trust the owner believes the modifications compensate for the commensurate loss of handling.
Even in the Pacific northwest where we have relatively few freeze/thaw cycles and thus fewer potholes than a lot of areas, a car with wheels like that is far more for looking at than for driving.
I took these pictures on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Seattle has a huge pothole problem so it makes me wonder how long these wheels and tires will actually last.
Several years ago I filed a claim (and won) against the City of Seattle for failing to fix a pothole on a major arterial (Aurora Ave./99). The impact ruined all four tires on my Mini Cooper. The rut was deep enough to hide a Starbucks coffee cup.
Oh, YUCK!!
I have seen some 20″ wheeled cars around here in the midwest. They always seem to roll really slow. I like that better than the 6L Diesel trucks that engulf me in a cloud of black soot only to show their superior torque curve between this green light and the next red light.
I happen to like this picture and I am not worried that another classic got modded. If that were your worry swapping wheels takes only 20 minutes.
These wheels make you look at the car. I mean the body lines and in particular the chrome trim and bumpers. I find it cool because chrome bumpers are a thing of the past.
Only 20″? My you haven’t lived till you have seen some 28″ that we have around here.
well, you know , I grew up with the metric system.
Saw another old soldier sporting these goofy donks here in the Heartland. If Aunt Edna could see her Buick now. Maybe the pillow-top seating of the era improves what is left of the ride after this treatment.
How to make a timeless design look dated, “This car is sooooo 2011”
I don’t really like the design of the wheels themselves, but as far as stance goes, this is one of the mildest ‘donk’ cars I have seen.
I do have a theory that all cars that were equipped with white side tires could have their stock wheels replaced with a rim that ended where the white part ended, and that the designers would have chosen to do so if they had acess to the technology back then. Then again, I’m not personally happy about spending such a hilarious amount of cash on something that has as short a fashion life as alloy wheels, and that also potentially ruins the handling by adding unsprung weight.
You don’t have to “buy” them.
http://www.rentawheel.com/
nope. the whole problem with the donk aesthetic is that the concept is silly. jacking up the rear with wide tires is simulating a drag racer. lowriders simulate aerodynamics. ricers simulate road racing cars. making a sedan ride way up in the air is simulating what? monster trucks?
Those hideous wheels would have a lifespan of about 5 minutes on Cleveland’s mean streets. And I’d like to be the one destroying them.
About 10 years ago, I was in a tire shop when a guy driving a Camry that had 20 inch wheels/tires comes in and asks the shop owner if he can do something about the inability to turn the steering wheel more than a few inches left or right of center.
The car owner lifted his car and put those large rims and tires under it without taking into account the effects on the steering of his car.
Like overly lifted trucks, cars with ridiculously large (or small) wheels and tires are a near menace to other drivers….IMHO.
Whatever our host is smoking, I would like some of it — that is ghastly. I’ll agree it is amusing, though … it’s like a Hot Wheels, or like when Matchbox, trying to meet the competition, put plastic “Superfast” wheels on its models whether they were appropriate or not.
As a lover of ’66 and ’67 Buicks, I do appreciate the owner keeping this car on the road, though.
Wagons, ho!
Ecch.
Love it.
As a visual exercise, I like it. It’s interesting enough that I studied it for some time. From a form follows function type of guy, I dislike it.
FAIL. Sorry Paul, just because this a less awful example of a nauseating fad doesn’t make it good. Im all for being open minded. Im all for cars embracing different styles. There are a LOT of cars and styles of tricking them out that aren’t necessarily ‘my thing’ and yet I see what theyre doing. Take Chicano style lowriders: Love them or hate them, those guys are passionate about them. They know how to bring out the lines of a car with layers of candy paint, the scallops, the wheels, the interiors…its true art. Those guys have an actual eye for style and are true crafsmen and engineers. Its legit hot rodding.
Those wheels are pure garbage. Oh yea there are WAY worse dubs out there. But dubs in general are a worthless trend. As has been pointed out, these wont make it over one speedbump at more than 5 mph. How long til those tires are $400 a pop of worn out garbage? The weight of those wheels is going to sap what power didn’t exist from most likely a bottom feeder base motor. That jacked up stance and high offset along with the style of the wheel make this look like a steam locomotive. And it wont take a corner or brake worth a damn. Ill happily trade a level of practicality for looks. But this has literally nothing going for it as it sits. Luckily, as others have said its an easy fix. Craigslist these eyesores and youll have people breaking their necks to hand over the dough for them…then you can decide which of about 30 of GMs factory wheels would make this car pop. Oh and scrap all the chrome if youre going flat black!
This looks like it’s bucking to become a featured prop in a relaunch of Blade. Considered in that light, I don’t have a problem with it.
I agree with the giant smurf.
I like the car I like the best bogan blak paint but the wanker wheels ruin it, I like cars that are driveable.
Car yes… Wheels no!
I must say I am always in favor of enlarging the horizon’s. At least in peering anxiously beyond the horizon’s of any field of human endeavor or interest. I congratulate you on your farsightedness, and as for your wheels, don’t ever bring them around here again. (apologies to Steve Allen show, Frank Zappa plays a bicycle).
Amazing how you can stretch rubber bands to such a huge circumference without them snapping.
This is not any worse or any less stupid than any other custom car flavor-of-the-week. But that’s not saying much. Preserving an old car is a kind of subtle rebellion, with plenty of room for individuality. So is building a quality custom that expresses a clear vision and has a real purpose, such as performance upgrades. But merely following a silly fad within whichever ready-to-wear subculture you picked up off-the-shelf is no less conformist than being in the mainstream. Might as well drive a silver Camcord – the other side of the same coin. Yawn.