One of the first thing I noticed about the Impala backside was this freakin’ tow hitch. I had thought who would put something like this on a classic ride.
After looking at the setup from below I can tell this wasn’t a hack job. By the amount of surface discoloration and rusting this rig has been on for a good long time. That’s when it dawned on me that folks back then would probably use whatever vehicles they had. Most families probably didn’t have multiple vehicles like a truck and at that time it wasn’t considered a classic car at all.
Photo taken before I got the shop vac action going. You can see the tow hitch electrical wiring set just below towards the bottom of the picture.
I went over to my neighbors up the hill, I call it the “compound”. He has the proper tire equipment to remove the funky ass worn rubber tires from the rims. It took about 20 minutes or less to remove the old rubber.
The Compound Commander has every freakin’ tool you need to work on cars, truck or motorcycles. He’s a former car racer so he knows his shit very well.
Found out that one of the rims was not the same size as the other three. The single widest rim is 14×6″ which means the others are less wide and must look hell of skinny when mounted.
Hubcaps are in bad shape. I’ll be hunting down a set later on down the line.
All this effort because of the goofy looking 1994-1997 S10 truck wheels that are on the La Bamba now. sometimes I look at it and it doesn’t bother me, other times it looks ridiculous.
I think the safe bet is to go with either traditional steelies or the era correct street rod look.
