1986 Buick (Century) Gran Sport - All The Money in the World

What this isn't is one of Buick's famed "Grand National's" or a "GNX" from the 1980's but rather a 1986 Buick Century "Gran Sport". It popped up on Facebook Marketplace this morning with a price reduced (by $500) ask of $7,000.  

You may be forgiven for thinking it was a "Grand Nat" as I did at first. The poster of the ad used this picture of the rear end as a thumbnail. Talk about "click-bait". I should have known better seeing that even a rusted out "Grand Nat" with a seized engine (or both) would command north of ten-grand. Seven-large for this is, as my father would say, "all the money in the world". 

Buick only built these cars for model-year 1986 and, yes, "Gran Sport" is spelled "correctly". There was never a "D" in the "Gran" in "Gran Sport" going all the way back to the first "Gran Sport" in 1965. There was no "D" in "Gran Turismo Omologato" (GTO), either. Although, "Gran Turismo Omologato" is Italian, using some poetic license here, for grand-tourer-homologated, a classification of cars certified for racing in the grand tourer class. For the record, please note, there was a "D" in the "Grand" in "Buick Grand National". 

So, again, what this isn't is one of Buick's famed coupes from the Eighties based on their rear-wheel-drive Regal, but rather a two-door version, I wouldn't call it a "coupe", per se, of their front-wheel-drive Buick Century  introduced in 1982. It shared it's structure and a great deal of DNA with the Pontiac 6000, Chevrolet Celebrity and Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. 

Buick herked and jerked some of their models around in the 1970's and 1980's to such a degree one needed the laser beam focus of a fighter pilot to keep of them all. Honestly, I did back in the day and, oddly enough, it all made sense to me. The S-Types, the T-Types, the Turbo-T's, the Sport Coupes, the Grand National's the GNX and so on. Back then I gobbled up anything and everything General Motors dished out, marketed or said with the eagerness of a sophomore. Sigh. Some days I miss that kid. 

Legend has it for 1982, the new front-wheel-drive Century was to replace the old rear-wheel-driver that had been around since 1978. However, it got a last second reprieve from the dumpster as Buick kept the old Century around as a "Regal" through 1984, the wagon through 1983. The coupe they dropped after 1987. They stuffed as many as 5,500 of them a year with one version or another of their turbocharged, 3.8-liter V-6 engine, that made as much as 276-horsepower and 360-pounds of torque. 

Speaking of which, our Facebook Marketplace find here has that famed Buick engine albeit without the turbocharger. In this muted guise, though, it makes 150-horsepower and as such, with some 200-foot pounds of torque available right off idle, in such a light car, it was a hallmark of 1960's-esque performance in those oh-so-depressing (for us GM fans) days of the mid-1980's. 

Along with the non-turbo 3.8, a fact Buick deftly marketed as an "advanced, 3.8-liter, sequential port-fuel injection powerplant", buyers of a 1986 Century Gran Sport got fifteen-inch alloy rims shod with beefy Goodyear Eagle GT's, a "sport-tuned-suspension" that they didn't go into nitty-gritty specifics on and a bevy of appearance features and touches including these interesting front-buckets with head rests embroidered with the same swooshy V-6 found on this car's steroid-fed big brother, the Grand National. 

All these bells and whistles enough to wrestle buyers away from a Grand National? No, of course not. If you wanted a Grand National you got a Grand National and swallowed the higher price of onehard. Buick only made 1,029 of these in 1986 and I'd have to imagine many buyers bought them by accident not knowing what it was they bought or what they bought was pretending to be. That being a Grand National knock-off. Have to say, those non-discriminating buyers could have done a lot worse. Well, domestically anyway. 

Frankly, this car rides and handles with more of a modern aplomb than the vaunted Grand Nat ever did. Not nearly as fast, but powerful cars grow old quickly if they don't ride and handle well. Then, there's the subjective discussion regarding styling. These cars can't, in my opinion, hold a candle to one of the few domestics of the 1980's that are worth a damn. That's saying something given how ambivalent I am towards 1978-1987 GM intermediates. If a Grand Nat rode and handled like this Century Gran Sport, Buick would have really had something on their hands back then. 

Trying to see this car through my then twenty-two-year old goggles when this first came out, it may have gotten a fair amount of attention from me had I been of the means to afford a new car at the time. I may have rationalized at the time that I was getting 7/8's of a Grand National for more than third of the price.  

Then again, I know I'd always long for the "real thing" perhaps trading this in for one. Then regretting it.  Or kicking myself for not by a Honda Accord. 

1968 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe - The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Some say our dreams are rehearsals for what we face in our waking hours or help to consolidate and analyze memories. Another study found that our dreams come more from our imagination than perception. With regards to nightmares, experts say people who have suffered post-traumatic-stress-disorder are more prone to them.  In any event, the other night I had a dream that I was driving a red, 1967 or 1968 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe similar to this '68 I found online for a dream-world vs. real-world comparison. 

I've read that the color red in dreams indicates that the dreamer may have angst and is experiencing stress in their life. Ok. Whatever. I've long given up attempting to analyze my dreams that do tend to be violent and\or sad. Not always, like the other night, for instance but it happens enough that my wife thinks there's something seriously wrong with me. Well, she's right about that but my strange dreams have nothing to do with that. What got me enough to blog about it was the randomness of that dream. As an automobile enthusiast, of all cars for my inner psyche to unconsciously hallucinate about, it picked one of General Motors few less than graceful styling exposes from the 1960's? And, one that was red and all that supposedly implies?  

Again, I have no idea why I dreamed about that car. The only semi-connection I've ever had to one was a family on the block I grew up on back on Long Island had a gold-on-black, '67 Impala Sport Coupe. That bruiser was without question the most "out there" car in the neighborhood. Eight or nine-year-old me gawked at it in the same way I flipped through a porno magazine for the first time; it was equally intriguing, mysterious and off-putting. I wanted to like the car as there was much I appreciated about the design but I could do without the flying buttress, fastback rear end that looks even larger in red. Full disclosure, red is my favorite color. 

My "dream car" had a red interior so it was fairly airy and bright inside and not this black vinyl tar-pit. Red vinyl was available on these cars; a cloth interior that looked "richer" but held up poorly was available but it not in red. Wow, look at the size of that shelf behind the top of the rear seat and, no, that seat won't fold down (like it should). The fastback roof line no doubt meant things heated up in here as fast as a greenhouse. I'm getting car sick just thinking about it. 

I distinctly recall the neighbors Impala had "327" badges on the front fender although I don't remember if it was an SS or not. My dream car had a 327 (cubic inch V-8 engine) along with a rumbling exhaust note; my dreams tend to be quite nuanced in the details. Alas, our subject here is saddled with Chevrolet's new-for-1968, 307-cubic inch V-8. Fun fact, the Chevrolet 307 has the dubious distinction of being, cubic-inch for cubic-inch, the least powerful V-8 engine General Motors ever manufactured. Its gross horsepower rating was 200, figure net between 115 and 130 depending on what day the engine was assembled. I've noted before that most cars with V-8's from the halcyonic "muscle car" era were hardly powerhouses. Case in point, this big old sled. 

As a styling exercise or experiment, these big fastbacks made between 1966-1968 are worthy of some praise since GM's stylists, under Bill Mitchell, ran hard for fences pushing the boundaries of tasteful design as far as it could go. In retrospect, I'm surprised these designs got approved in an era when GM styling was, arguably, at it's all time best.  Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buiick (B-bodies) offered similar roof lines that GM discontinued after 1968. I find the "Custom Coupe" and convertibles of this vintage a far more handsome design. 

If dreams are a rehearsal for real world circumstance, as some suggest, why couldn't my dream have been of me in a '61 Impala "bubble-top" or off-roading in a new Ford Bronco two-door? 

1994 Ford Mustang GT Convertible - Heart of Hearts

Ford did a major update to their 1979 "Fox-body" Mustang for model year 1994 restyling it as an homage to the original 1964 1/2 - 1966 Mustang. The results, in my humblest of opinions, were decidedly mixed. Our Facebook advertised find here is a '94 for sale somewhere up here on "The North Coast" for (a breath taking) $16,500. 

That primo asking price no doubt driven by the car's superb condition and its low mileage; there are less than twenty-five thousand miles on its twenty-nine-year old analog ticker. Then again, a 1994 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 or Pontiac Trans Am in this kind of shape with such low miles would probably go for ten-grand more. Oh, did you say fifteen-grand more? Ford chiseled and whittled away most of the cheesey-retro-themed nonsense of these cars for 1999 coming with a car that looked more like an evolution of '60's Mustangs as opposed to a modern (and ugly) interpretation of one. 

My experience with a 1998 Mustang GT convertible was less than clandestine. Back in Dallas years ago, for a minute or two, I thought of ditching my 2001 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS for one. Top up or down I found the structure jittery and shuddering. Top up, the interior noise was deafening and while the ride was fair but the handling I found brutish, crude, disconnected if not numb feeling; some people like that but I'm man enough to admit that I don't. Especially on a daily driver. My Monte Carlo  was a bastion of refinement and civility in comparison. What good is a "cool" car if in your "heart-of-hearts" you really can't stand the thing? I learned that lesson the hard way when I ditched the Monte Carlo for a 2002 Camaro Z28. 

Granted, despite the upgrading for '94, this is still a design rooted in the late '70's and my Monte Carlo  firmly planted in the '90's (if not the '80's). But, forgive me for asking, what's the point of a "sporty car" if it really can't do anything better than a plebian sedan? Not to mention having to put up with all of its inconveniences.

Reminds me of when I had my sexy 2002 Camaro Z28 and I happen to drive a 2003 Honda Accord V-6 sedan. That freaking family car Accord impressed me so much that I promptly got rid of my Z. I regret that move to this day because that Z was one fun weekender, but as a daily driver? Again, I ain't no masochist. Owning that Camaro Z28 was like a middle aged man dating a young, party-girl. Sound fun, no? But if that girl only wants to pah-tay, well, that grows tiresome. Fun at first or once in a while, but sometimes all we want to do is have a simple dinner at home and fall asleep on the couch watching TV. 

This pony is a horse of a somewhat different feather seeing it has Ford's venerated if not mythic "Windsor", 302-cubic inch V-8 and not the modular, 4.6-liter, SOHC engine that replaced the 302, or "Five-Point-Oh" in 1996. A smoother running if not lighter motivator, the 4.6 lacked the raw scoot (balls) of the 5.0 to say nothing of being seriously outgunned by GM's LT-1 and LS-1 engines found in Camaro's and Firebird's. Upside is, there are far more "go-fast", after market parts available for the Windsor engine compared to the 4.6. Ford made available their gigantic DOHC 4.6 they stuffed in Lincoln Continentals and Mark VIII's in these cars starting in 1996 as well. You find one of those in this condition and won't be going for $16,600. 

They say in the used car business there's an arse for every seat and that may very well be true in this case. I found this car around Christmastime and have not been able to find it since. Looks like someone picked it up. I sure hope they know what they're getting themselves into. 

2022 Ford Bronco - Coal In My Stocking

Leave it to my wife to not pick up on my not-so-subtle hints that I wanted a two-door Ford Bronco for Christmas. I've only been openly clamoring for one since they first came out back in 2019 for model year 2020 and this year, with my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS not only passing the 250,000-mile marker but is now hard charging towards 300K, I pushed harder than ever. Alas, there was no Bronco in my driveway with a big red bow on top Christmas morning. She got me golf stuff instead. Shoot, she might as well have put coal in my stocking. 

Of course, I'm kidding. Asking someone to surprise you with a vehicle is a lot of pressure to put on them. Especially if that person is a "car-person" like me who will scrutinize every single last detail and suck all the joy out of the moment. So much can go wrong. Especially with a vehicle that's more configurable than a 1970's Cadillac. 

For 2023 Ford offers no less than ten-different "Broncos". There's the base Bronco, the Big Bend, Black Diamond, Outer Banks, Badlands, Wild Trak, Everglades, Raptor, Heritage and lastly, but certainly not least expensively, the Bronco Heritage Limited. All of these different iterations available with an insane amount of option packages and accessories pushing the sticker price from approximately $32,000 to just under, $110,000. Holy-Sasquatch!

I haven't even drilled down on a specific color I'd want to say nothing about whether I should opt for a "Kayak Roof Rack" or "Front Bumper Winch". What if she got me the "Tube Doors" when I really wanted the "Bimini Soft Top"? Would she think to ask if she could get the base Bronco with the Raptor's 418-horsepower engine? What about asking if the Oxford White wheels from the Heritage model are available on the base model too? 

While my wife is the most intelligent person I know, there is the distinct possibility as well as she may come home with a completely different Bronco called the Bronco Sport. Why Ford came out with two different vehicles that share the same first name is a real head scratcher; supposedly it's all about "building the brand".  Then again, these are the same folks who festoon "Mustang" to an all-electric crossover. For the record, the Bronco Sport is based off the latest iteration of the (very capable) Ford Escape meanwhile my beloved Bronco is built off the current Ford Ranger pickup truck chassis. Might sound trivial, but it's the difference between what's defined as a "truck" these days and a "tall car". 

I haven't even driven one yet to have any idea what version I'd want; can you test drive each of the ten versions? Therefore, my appreciation of these things is purely visceral, like that crush I had on the captain of the cheer leading squad in high school whom I never spoke a word to. I want one just because I think they're cool looking. Gosh, what if my wife got me one and when I drove it, in my heart of hearts that all-knowing, painfully honest little voice in my head said, "I hate this thing". Been there done that and let me tell you, that's not fun and such experiences have led my wife and I to both suffer from an all but paralyzing fear of "buyer's remorse".  

These things aren't cheap either. Glancing quickly at spec sheets and sales brochures I figure I'd want a "Badlands", two-door, with the 2.7-liter, "Ecoboost" V-6, 10-speed automatic, "Full Time AWD",  "4.7" axle, "mid-package" equipment group, "Sasquatch" package, retractable top, "bash plates" (I have no idea what they are, but they sound cool), Marine Grade, heated vinyl seats, SYNC 4 "voice recognition" and the whole thing slathered in "Area 51" (it's a grey blue) paint. Total, before taxes and fees but with destination charges is a not-as-much as I thought it would be $53,300. Yeah, not as much as I thought but that's still an eff-ton of money. 

The handy-dandy calculator on the Ford.com website guesstimates my\our monthly payment at $906 a month for sixty-months. Whoa. That's with ten-percent down and 5% APR too. Throw in taxes, whatever nonsensical dealer installed accessories I'd have to have and we're pushing $60,000. Say that slowly and it sounds like even more. Sixty. Thousand. Dollars. Good grief. With no money down for sixty months, I'm looking at around $1,200 a month. Ford can stretch the payments out to seventy-two months (six-years!) that would drop payments down to around a grand-a-month. I've seen some car companies offer up to eighty-four monthly payments. Allow me to examine the head of anyone who'd think that's a good idea. 

This, meaning my acquisition of a new or late model Ford Bronco, will never happen. They're just too damn expensive. Now, granted, and at the risk of humble bragging, we can afford these payments, but my wife and I choose not to. And there's a certain empowerment to choosing not to that most people, sadly, either ignore or don't realize is a viable option for them. Leasing doesn't make sense either since lease payments for thirty-six months are quite similar to sixty purchase payments; leasing longer is an even bigger waste of money especially if the buyout is exorbitant. Which it most like will be to get love-struck Jamokes into a vehicle they shouldn't be in. 

What to do then? Well, we wait. We wait for something catastrophic to happen to the ole "Dale" and then we'll make the most prudent, cost-efficient decision we can. And, again, that decision will most certainly not be for a Ford Bronco "Badlands". No matter how much (I think) I want one. 

1978 Oldsmobile Toronado - Big Ole Slice of Malaise Era Luxury

Today's Facebook find reeks of someone trying to ditch their old car before they have to pay the stipend to store it. Originally listed at $4,600, the price has been sawzalled to $3,200. Only 34,000-miles or so on its 44-year-old analog ticker too. Still available today five weeks after original listing. That's not a good sign. I mean, who wouldn't want a 1978 Oldsmobile Toronado? 

This darn thing is so "cheap", I might feel inclined to jump on it although, with this being the only picture of the interior, and this to show off its super low mileage, I get the sneaky feeling there might be something up with the insides. My concern would be getting stuck with it after I grew tired of it. Three-grand is still three grand, after all. 

If you're curious, "S" on the transmission selector is for "SPORT", although "sport" on an almost five-thousand-pound car powered by a 185-horsepower engine is relative. "SPORT" was simply a third-gear lockout. "L", or "low", locked out second and third gear. 

There is some quasi or semi-interesting history to this car what with it being a 1978, 1978 the last year for these cars before GM shrink-rayed them to a more manageable albeit still substantial size. It also has, debateably, the last great or really good V-8 engine built by Oldsmobile, that being the good old 403-cubic incher. Making all of 185-horsepower, which, give or take ten-to-forty horsepower, was about the most any engine made by the Big Three and a Quarter back then, it did make a stout 325-foot pounds of torque that gives this car a fighting chance to get up to freeway speed without it getting clobbered. No engine pictures either. This a barn find and they only detailed the exterior? 

You'll still get clobbered at the gas pump, though. Perhaps not as bad as what the Oldsmobile 455 engine would do to your wallet or debit card; the 455 the engine the 403 replaced starting in 1977 because GM believed they would never be able to get the 455 to pass ever stricter emissions and fuel economy standards. I'd figure seven-to-nine mpg around town, maybe twelve, thirteen if you're lucky on the highway. 

The coolest thing about these cars, although few would notice, was that these are front-wheel drive. While most cars today are "pulled" by their front wheels, back in the day, most cars were "pushed" by their rears. Thanks to what GM referred to as the "Unified Power Package", or "U.P.P.", the engine, transmission and differential were lumped together as one unit in front of the firewall. Pretty trick piece of engineering. It was so good and so seamless, there was zero torque-steer, unsuspecting drivers never noticed. Or cared. 

Why GM decided to use it only on the Toronado and very similar Cadillac Eldorado is a question us mortal car geeks will never get answered. Certainly, would have made more sense to use it on at least their mid-size models or even their compacts given the interior packaging efficiency front-wheel drive enables. You ever sit in a rear engine, 1960-1969 Chevrolet Corvair? Positively cavernous without the tunnel and the hump for the driveshaft. Rumor has it the "U.P.P." was initially intended to be used on intermediate sized cars but that plan was scrapped by GM higher-ups. 

Oh, but how will she drive? Well, despite being front-wheel drive, typical for the time period, actually. That means soft, cushy and silent. Over boosted power steering will providing little to no road feel and the front end will wander and need constant attention to keep in a straight line. Solid beam rear axle doing handling no favors save for providing isolation from the road.  

Combine the floaty ride and handling with sluggish engine performance, and what you have here is a big-ole slice of "Malaise Era" luxury. Yum. Gosh, what did I ever see in cars like this when I was younger?   

Looks like I've talked myself out of this thing. Which is therapeutic. Like I said, when I was younger, and for reasons that all but escape me now, old iron like this were "my thing". Now all I see is what they are or portended to be. What that was, much like old trappings of the wealthy, escapes me now too. 

(Bruce Springsteen's) 1960 Chevrolet Corvette - Corvette Winter

This photo of Bruce Springsteen and his 1960 Corvette, now known as "Corvette Winter", was shot in February, 1978 as part of the shoot for the artwork for Springsteen's 1978 album, "Darkness on the Edge of Town". It was shot by photographer Frank Stefanko in front of Stefanko's home in Haddenfield, New Jersey. 

 

 

Springsteen brought several sets of clothing to the session and Stefanko took a number of different photographs of the rising rock star over a several-day shoot. Springsteen also came to the shoot each day in a different vehicle. The day before "Corvette Winter" was shot, he showed up in a Chevrolet C/10 pickup. 

After a number of different poses, wardrobe changes and adjustments to lighting, Stefanko took a photo Springsteen believed was emulative of the characters and songs on the album he had just finished recording. Dark, gritty songs that were unlike anything on the romantic "Born to Run" album that catapulted Springsteen to superstardom. 

After the success of "Born to Run", Springsteen became embroiled in a long legal battle with his manager, Mike Appel. Springsteen claimed he received minimal publishing or royalties from the release of "Born to Run" and sued Appel. Appel, in turn, counter sued Springsteen going so far to block Springsteen from entering a recording studio. Thus, the near-three year "hiatus" between the releases of "Run" and "Darkness". 

The entire legal affair, which, purportedly, allegedly or conveniently, resulted not only in a wiser if not "darker" Springsteen, but in a follow up album to "Born to Run" that was somber if not downright depressing. Springsteen and his band recorded fifty-two songs for the album, many of which reflecting Springsteen's 1960's pop, rock and soul influences and sensibilities, but Springsteen insisted anything upbeat not be included on "Darkness". 

Springsteen has noted publicly that the only thing he got from the release of "Born to Run" was a grand piano and his 1960 Chevrolet Corvette. Springsteen, apparently, still has this car.  

With regards to the car, story goes that flush with cash after "Born to Run" went to number three on the Billboard Album 200 chart, Springsteen bought the car for $6,000 from a young attendant working the counter at an ice cream parlor in the Freehold, New Jersey area. Who knew that shucking ice cream in the mid-Seventies paid so well. Frank Stefanko said that Springsteen loved the car and was "everything to him". Clearly, Springsteen loved it enough that he spent almost as much on a then fifteen-year-old Corvette as a new, 1975 Corvette would have cost him. 

The above car, part of a display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 2009-2010, is not the "Corvette Winter" Corvette. I thought about turning this entire blog into a rail about how the Rock Hall Corvette is not the "Corvette Winter" car but thought better of it. What would be the point? Especially considering that Springsteen exhibit was now more than a dozen years ago.  

Sadly, there isn't much information available about the car itself. Springsteen, allegedly, is a "car guy", although the definition of what a "car guy (or person)" is varies; not all of "us" are Jay Leno. Springsteen also has a 1963, split-rear-window, Corvette Sting Ray, a 1969 Ford XL convertible, a 1970 Ford F-100 pickup, a 1982 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, and I'm sure he has others. A fan of "driver's" and not museum pieces, bless his Hungry Heart, clearly none of his drivers are as famous as the Corvette Winter Corvette. He chose it to be be featured in the March 2022 episode of the podcast that he does with President Obama. Obama even drove it. 

In publicity stills for the podcast, we see the 1964-vintage Crager SS rims on the car and not the 1960-correct wheel covers the "Rock Hall" car has. It also has raised-white-letter tires and not (yuck) whitewalls and we see the car lacks the Rock Hall car's optional two-tone paint scheme; I much prefer the look of no two-tone first-gen or "C1" Corvettes. The above car is the real deal. The Rock Hall car, again, is not. 

With so little information about the car itself, I'm left with plastering my face into the handful of pictures I can find of it attempting to find something, anything about the actual car. And, voila. Look - we see the radio to the right of Springsteen's knee is a Pioneer KP500. This is not insignificant although we don't know if he bought the car this way, installed the "K5" himself or had it installed. Not many aftermarket units back in the day looked as handsome and proper; especially attached to the dash and not a direct drop-in replacement. Smaller, more conventional looking (for the time period) "head units" can fit in the dash on these cars but require modifications; something most discerning Corvette cognoscenti would avoid at all costs. Especially on painfully rare first-generation or what are now referred to as "C1" Corvettes. Also, note Springsteen's grip on the steering wheel. That's the grip of a man on the wheel of a car that does not have power steering. Corvettes did not have power steering available as an option until 1963. There are pricey conversion kits available; I'm sure he can afford one. 

1960 Corvette's came with either a three- or four-speed manual transmission, or two-speed "Powerglide" automatics. From this photo we see that Springsteen's car has a manual, but I have no idea if it's the three- or four-speed. Corvette didn't get a three-speed "Turbo Hydramatic" (automatic transmission) until 1968. 

Seeing there's no tell-tale, "Fuel Injection" badge near the top of the front fenders, Springsteen's '60 doesn't have a fuel injected, 283-cubic inch, V-8 engine. All 1960 Corvettes were powered by 283's in various states of tune ranging from 230 to 315-horsepower. Springsteen's car probably came came from the factory with one of three carbureted 283 engines making either 230, 245 or 270-horsepower. These are SAE "gross" and not "net" ratings but still, a good amount of power for the time period. The fuel injection engines made either 275 or 315-horsepower. All 1960 Corvettes were convertibles, hard tops weren't available until 1963 And take note of the rear tire on the above photo, it's clearly offset by a good inch-and-half to two-inches: same as in the "Corvette Winter" photo. That's done, usually, with wheel-spacers between the wheel and in this case, the brake drum.  

 

It wasn't uncommon back-in-the-day for owners to modify the suspensions of their cars to make them ride and handle better. Seeing this car rides higher in the rear than stock and is "hunched" somewhat forward, safe to say it has heavier-duty leaf springs than it came from the factory with. The combination of the leaf springs and wheel spacers also gives the car a tough and (more) dangerous, edgy flare without compromising the design of the car. The raised-white-letters tires, which incidentally were not available to consumers until the mid-Sixties, adding to the mysterious ethos of "Corvette Winter". 

Somewhat disappointingly, in photos of Springsteen with President Obama, there's no offset on the rear wheels and the leaf springs appear stock. Just as well although the car in looking "more perfect", appears actually less authentic in in my opinion. It's less than it was when first photographed by Frank Stefanko in what has become known as "Corvette Winter". 

Springsteen was such a fan of the "Corvette Winter" photo that he chose it as the cover on his 2017 autobiography, "Born to Run".