ok i feel like an idiot for even asking this but what is meant by the name sleeper look? no laughing please

 

Have you ever seen an old muscle car that seems like its beat up, normally the body is still in primer, some with a giant tach on the hood. Thats a sleeper....Looks like nothing, gets you to race them thinking you got it in the bag, and then wham.....they are half way down the quarter mile while you are still at the starting line...

 

looks like crap, sounds like crap, has about 500 hp under the hood thats the "sleeper look" to me.

 

If it looks stock, but is really fast, that qualifies as a sleeper. It is basically anything that is much faster than it looks.

 

stealing your aunts top fuel 300mph drag racer and bolting your station wagon body onto it.

A sleeper is not hard to find. Many people put more into go than looks. lots of 3rd gen are a sleeper from the bad looks.

 

Lots of terms for " sleeper " but it's usally the same ole drum with a different beat. Say you pull up next to a R!ced out civic, wing, body kit, neons, sound system, fart pipe ect.... this kid is showing off his ride and throwing tons of money into the car, might be a quick one with a turbo and some Nitrous, but not likely. This kid is a carnival on wheels, you can see and hear him from a mile away. Now lets say you pull up next to Anything else, usually more or less a " muscle " car. A Black monte carlo, some older 5.0, or even a 3rd gen. Now any of these cars can have somthing crazy in them, kinda like a book, dont just read the cover. Basicly it's a car that looks mostly stock, sounds stock, nothing to give away the true potential of the car. All you know is that Monte might have a GN motor in it ( good trick of my friends, got alot of money that way ), That 5.0 could be mostly stock with a exhaust system and maybe some spray, and one of my favorite ideas is the 3rd gen. Many of us know how many v6 3rd gens are out there, and how many 305's that are slow. So often they get looked on as the muscle with little go. But pull up next to a 3rd gen Z 28 , stock rims , exhaust looks stock, not loopy , ect... well you will think it's the norm 3rd gen... and then the guy pulls a 11 in the 1/4... that's a sleeper

Basic principle, same result. Make it look like the norm and make it go like a bat out of hell. Ohh and if you do happen to pull up next to somthing that you might think is a sleeper, look at the tires... not the rims, the tires. If it's street slicks then it's probably going to move pretty fast. it's like getting a Race car with a gorcery getter in one... but not the same

 

i was at the track once and saw the definition of sleeper

older fox body....85 somewhere around there....the ragtop was torn to hell, paint looked like crap, couldnt even hear the car running while he staged. Then the lights dropped, and he was gone like the wind....i think it ran a 10.

Things arn't always what they seem

 

Exactly but I would like to add that it could still be a clean car. I shaved off the emblems in my RS and filled the holes, took of the side door moldings and removed the emblems from the bumper. It has a stock RS hood and 15" RS wheels. When I am done it is going to have a supercharged 350. I plan on putting a very quiet exhaust, probably a single pipe and tucking that under the bumper as far as it will go. It looks stock and very clean and no one will have any idea that it is fast. I would say sleepers should be clean but without signifigant body modifications.

 

well I can tell you whats NOT a sleeper. A car with the blower sticking out of the hood. LOL

Nate

 

My bad, I meant supercharged and it wouldn't be sticking out of the hood.

 

Look at Traxion's Iroc. From the outside, it looks like a beautiful bone stock Iroc. Very clean.

What's he running now? Mid 11's? Not sure, but it'll blow the doors of many an unsuspecting competitor.

I think the term "sleeper" came from another term. "Caught ya sleeping". I hear it a lot in football. When a running team suddenly throws a deep route pass, they always say "caught the secondary sleeping".

Same idea.

 

Sleeper = Something that is actually alot faster than it looks.

 

Yea, I remember someone on the street racing board here who beat a viper and 2 new model vettes. Was a funny looking car. He had the interior totally stripped of carpet and just the drivers seat was in. Had a cowl hood with the cowl riveted on and mismatched colored body panels.

Looks crazy and something I would love to do for the fun of it. It is so much more satisfying when they don't realize what hit em . Gonna be fun when I get my v6 rolling again this month and have someone pull up to me and see my drum brake rear end and RS badges, little do they know thier is an lt1 and T56 in the car .

 

Something like this?




Cheers,

 

ain't it the truth! haha

 

About 5 or 6 years ago, a friend of mine's brother built a car that is the definition of a sleeper. It was an old Chevette or Acadian or something (the really old rwd ones) that he put a 383 Chevy into. The body of this thing looked absolutely nasty, but damn could this thing move! Only thing that might give it away were the big mags on the back, lol.

He ended up selling it (i think) for a '95 Z28. He says he got the Z28 because the 383 Chevette was just too much for a daily driver. Duh, lol.

 

<---Check It!83 and 85 Sig

 

To me a sleeper is a car that was never meant to be fast, but is. So Camaro's don't fall into that catagory.

What comes to mind, is the guy who put a 401 in his AMC Pacer wagon. He won the ultimate sleeper award from Car Craft magazine some years back.

 

a sleeper i ran into many years ago when i had my t/a was a beat badly, i mean giant pos rusted out blazer...... took me off the line like it was a Rocket ship or something.. was i shocked when it was a good 1/4 mile down the road on me.

 

The best example of a sleeper i have seen was whenever i was at a gas station. A guy pulled in with a new hemi ram. I was talking to him about it, and he said "she really moves". I happened to see a guy about 19 years old i suppose, and he had this 1987 chevy truck with a rotted wooden flatbed. Stock wheels, tires, and the paint job was some faded ugly blue. He had sidepipes with cherry-bombers. I just thought " what a hick" haha
well anyways the guy in the ram left (did a little burny out of the lot), and this kid comes up to me and says "man i always wanted to run one of those new rams". I thought he was crazy, thought he had some real rocketship with his glasspacks... So he popped the hood, and i had to sheild my eyes from all the chrome. MAN it was a 355 with over 400 horse! All motor, it was crazy. So anyways he took off out of there, tried to get on it but he can't get it to hook up, so instead i just got a huge smokeshow!

That's what i call a sleeper :hail:

 

305 RS on your license plate when packing a supercharged 420 SBC. Someday maybe

 

on a video a friend let me borrow, some guy had a 89 (?) or so mitsubishi pickup, 4x4 extended cab, and under the hood was a heavily modded dsm! This thing looked like *** but hauled.

 

Well, I used to have one. it was a 1974 Ranchero, for those that don't know that was Ford's version of an El Camino. It was butt ugly lime yellow green. Had some ugly aluminum rims on it. Nice mellow exhaust, cam with only enough lope that you just thought the car was running as ratty as it looked. But under the hood was 400 Cubic Inches of terror. I'm not sure what kind of power it was putting out, lot's, that's for sure. Best example I was towing a trailer with two Motorcycles on it and another motorcycle in the bed. A guy pulls up in an El Camino SS and starts getting racy with me, me towing a trailer! I dusted him! He cuoldn't believe it! Now that was a sleeper!

 

My dad was driving in Germany a few years back. He was being escorted in some brand new BMW going at around 120mph or so on the AB. Theres no one around, and they are cruising in the right lane, but all of a sudden the white Ford Pinto absolutely goes FLYING past them in the left lane. He said it had to be doing 160 or so. He and the driver (didnt even speak english) just started laughing their asses off.

 

sleepers are cool , my dad has a sleeper, his 77 trans am , it looks exactly stock on the outside, he has wider rims that look stock and a 462 poncho a 4 speed and a chrysler 8 3/4 rear end. It looks stock from the outside but it isnt, 12.39 @ 110 . Sleepers are cool until you get killed by one.