Thread: Hello, Have a question for you guys.

Tweet

I am new to this board, and although I dont own a hot rod, I do appreciate them, and have great deal of respect for the work that goes into them. I am a member of Midwest Street Ryders forum, and wanted to pose a question to the hot rodders out there. I am in the "donk" scene, now technically a donk is only a 71-76 Chevy caprice or impala, but I know that most people think a donk is any car on big wheels(its not) , I am only using that term so that you understand what type of cars I am into. Our car cultures, is heavily influenced by hot rods, we love big engines( we call it runnin when you have a fast car) and allot of horse power, and some of us enjoy taking our cars to the local race track our back road to run em.I guess my question is, why do you think it is that we get so much negative responses, I mean we show allot of love to other car cultures on our board, but every time I see a post on You tube, or a pic on the web, I see allot of negative responses, and allot of racist responses. I wanted to pose the questions to you guys to see what you think. I know that our cars might not be to your taste, but the same can be said about hot rods to, but allot of the time people see our cars you see the same crap response, "waist of money" "drug dealer" .Allot of us do work on our own cars, allot of us do work legal jobs, and allot of us are car guys, we just don't understand the negative response. We hear the same stuff, about the cars sitting to high, to loud(but same can be said about hot rod engines) but to be honest, most of us tuck our cars, and have moved away from the lifted look, we do allot of the upgrades to make the cars safer, bigger brakes, beefier suspensions, ext.. but still we get allot of very negative replies. I am posing this question for some honest feed back, and not to start any arguments, again, I have allot of respect for the hot rod community, and attend allot of the hot rod shows, and I think that we(donks and hot rods) have more in common than you might think. Thanks

Welcome to the forum, and you make some very good points. What it boils down to I think is that no matter how we human beings who are into cars try to say we "like em all and respect the other guys right to do what he wants", in reality, we are all for the most part very biased toward the kind of car we like. I'll be the first to admit that when I see one of these Donk cars I have to laugh at it, and not in the way that we smile when we see one that we like. To me they are as bad as those pregnant roller skates the ricers drove around on with tires and wheels hanging out into the breeze.

Don't hate me for being honest............I form opinions of every car I look at and often wonder what made the other guy do something a certain way. I bet if others are honest they will admit to the same kind of feelings and opinions. It is no different than the Ford VS Chevy thing.

I have quite a few Donk type cars running around in my area, and I just think they are ridiculous and goofy looking............sorry. However, you are still in America where you have the right to like what you like, as long as it isn't illegal, immoral, or fattening.

Don

PS: What a waste of a perfectly good Impala!

I'm not much into fashion and fads......now what the heck is a donk anyway??? Sure was a lot easier to keep up when everybody called their car a Hot Rod.......

DONK? I must be getting old. I thought it was a 4 legged animal like one that I rode down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Cars are cars, I like a lot of different kinds. Used to be a sports car freak. Owned quite a few in my life. Still like them, but now have no money for them. Hot rods take all my money and time now. I think I have a high toleration for cars and have found few that I don't really like, but who am I to criticise someone elses dream. To each his own. After all it's your time and money, put it where you want.

I guess it is because not everything appeals to everybody... I personally do not care for Donks at all.. but I can understand where your coming from.... I deal with 6cyls and 4dr's and I like them, but being 90% of everybody into old cars chucks the 6cyls and uses 4dr's for parts, you can see what I mean... do I even get the Donk thing? I really don't, but I don't have to get it, because they will attract the people who do get it, because not everything is for everybody.....

See, in my eyes, there not engineered very well.. with the big wheels ( what do they run 26-30"? ) you are throwing your gear ratios Wayyy off and killing performance, and also more rolling mass to stop... really they could use 4.56 or 5.00 ( really just guessing, but I bet I'm close ) with an OD or a 4.11 with a non OD, but I bet a lot of these cars have tall gears I bet.. probably highest of a 3.73 or so

OK, I appreciate machinery of all kinds and the skill, patience and money it took to engineer them and screw them together. But there are some kinds of automotive venues that I just can't get turned on about. One of them is NASCAR. While I appreciate the machinery that is under the skin of the car and all the engineering that went into it, I just can't sit and watch cars that resemble daily drivers with stupid paint jobs go around in a circle. Makes no sense to me. Now, on the other hand, I can sit and watch other kinds of vehicles go around in a circle all day long, particularly sprint cars.

Rice rockets don't do much for me either.

Up until this evening, I had no idea what a Donk was. I don't see them as being that much different in appearance or theme than a lifted 4x4 pickup with huge off-road rubber.

I will make two observations though, since you have asked what it is that turns people off.
1. Your statement "back road to run em". What in the name of all that is Holy makes you think you can break the law and generate respect for yourself and others like you. All it takes is one drag race involving two Donks for observers to hang a tag of outlaw on all of you as a group. I can't even suggest that you take them to the drag strip. They're not legal there because the centerline of the crankshaft is more than 24" from the ground. And that's just with a cursory glance. You wouldn't like the results of me doing an in-depth technical inspection on your car and writing a list of infractions outlining why you can't race at my track.
2. The front tag on the Donk that Don linked says, I think..."30's BI*CH" (the rules here won't let me spell it out). Now, the owner/driver obviously thinks that's cool. He is failing to realize that everywhere he drives, solid, down-home, hard-working, tax-paying, church-going people are seeing this. The same people who go to the polls and vote against the very thing you fellows represent because it makes them mad to see vulgarity displayed in public where their kids can see it and think it's OK. This driver fails to realize that a tour through a parking lot on Saturday afternoon could bring him to the attention of a quartet of little old ladies headed back to the car after a day of shopping. They see that plate and are offended. And I don't blame them for being offended. Little does the driver of the Donk know that one of them is the mother of the Chief of Police, one of them is the Mayor's sister, one is the chairwoman of the local Women's Club and the other one is the local Presbyterian Church Minister's wife. Each of them is good friends with or knows someone who is good friends with a lawmaker in the State Legislature. How much "good press" do you think the Donk movement is going to get from this brief encounter? I doubt you've ever heard the saying "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world", but if you don't understand or believe that, you haven't spent enough time on this rock.

You fellows need to pull your collective heads out and get a clue as to how this country operates. Respect given elicits respect received.

I predict that your movement will be legislated into obscurity.

You could not have put it in to better words TECH. I think the things are downright ridiculous. If I seen that THING I would think there was about to be a drive by shooting about to happen...lol

to each his own ... but if a guys car is an expression of himself then what does a donk car say about the owner ?

Thanks for your input

Welcome. I'm sure you are finding that opinions are king on internet chat groups!

While many of us (I'm guilty) have a way of building that we have embraced, I realized a few years back that I would rather have young guys with a different style take over the hobby .... if they did it with the same passion I have always felt ....than to see it fade away. For me it was the acceptance of front wheel drive 4-cylinder drag cars, that was the big hurdle! I'm doing better now, but change is hard for us "old guys". Next I have to accept those "rubber band" tires. :-) You will understand in a few quick years, so please be patient with us.

Now, do it your way, like we have done, and drive this custom auto hobby forward!