very so often useless thoughts get tangled in my head—most I’m unable to delete. They just stick there taking up valuable space. Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the super high-end Chevy muscle cars that get unveiled at SEMA and debut at the Detroit Autorama, Grand National Roadster Show, and other high-profile events. Some of these cars get tons of promotion prior to the show, only to never be seen or heard from once the awards are handed out.

This isn’t true with all cars, but it seems many of them don’t get driven much further than up the ramp and into the trailer on the final day of the show. I know that hundreds of thousands of dollars go into these cars, with some reaching six figures, so that makes it somewhat understandable as to why the owner would hesitate to risk any kind of damage after such a big spend. But that just begs the question, ‘Why the hell would anyone build a car with little or no plans to drive it?’

I’ve recently seen a couple Grand National Roadster Show award-winning cars turn up at a local SoCal cruise spot and then make their way up Pacific Coast Highway driving alongside the “regular” cruisers. It’s refreshing to see the owners getting their rides out for a weekend drive and using them as intended.

t was great to be back in Louisville for the 53rd NSRA Street Rod Nationals, held August 4-7 at the massive Kentucky Exposition Center. With foul weather forecasted throughout the event, measurable rain was a “no-show,” and what little precipitation there was didn’t dampen anyone’s car or spirit.

verybody wants a car that handles well. Any new car built in the last 30 years will far out-corner a stock ’60s machine with little trouble but it is also easy to upgrade and improve corner prowess with the bolt-on simplicity of an antiroll or sway bar. But once you dive into the nuances of suspension modifications, the answer isn’t always just to bolt on the biggest bar. It’s a bit more complicated than that. So let’s dive in.

Factory cars from the ’60s were especially weak in suspension design with regard to improved handling. This is evidenced by soft spring rates, very tiny antiroll bars, and less-than-ideal alignment specs, which were all aimed at driver comfort rather than any attempt at better handling. But that means there are plenty of opportunities for a simple and effective upgrade with the addition of a front and/or rear antiroll bar. The approach for this story will be aimed at the average street enthusiast who just wants a slightly better handling machine.

We’ll focus our initial discussion on front antiroll bars and slide into rear bars. The idea behind an antiroll bar is to increase resistance to roll when the car is driven into a tight corner at an aggressive speed. The front suspension’s normal reaction in a lefthand turn is to compress the right front spring. Of course, you could minimize this roll with very high-rate springs, but that also affects ride quality, so another way to minimize body roll is with a torsion bar that connects to the frame and also to both lower control arms. As weight transfer attempts to pitch the body, the bar’s diameter and lever arm combination work to resist this body roll.