Custom Front Suspension Parts

I was watching Jay Leno's video on his build of his '66 Galaxie 7 Litre. If you watch the video it shows custom tubular front upper control arms, a rack and pinion install and custom boxed lower control arms. Plus, a huge 1/ 3/8" front sway bar. All these parts were made by Hotchkiss suspension for Jay, and were supposed to be sold to the public, but as of today still aren't available.

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/restoration-blog-1966-ford-galaxie-ultimate-edition/1267559/

The suspension stuff is around the 10 min mark if you don't want to watch the whole video.

Since these Ford's have virtually the same front suspension as our Torinos (I know the upper arms are the same part numbers for early 1972's), it's too bad Hotchkiss didn't make these parts as we might have been able to make them work for our cars. But since it's not a Mustang, a Mopar or Chevy, I guess Hotchkiss doesn't care.

The arms are suspposed to help improve front end geometry. I am not sure where he source the steering rack, but I bet that same once could be made to work on the Torino frame. He does a nice brake upgrade too.

Still a neat video to watch, sweet car that Jay built.

I forgot to mention they do have the sway bar listed, but I am not sure if it would fit our cars. I don't really need a bigger bar though, my car is pretty flat with the CVPI springs and the 1 1/8" bar. I noticed the frame mounts on the Galaxie are different than our cars. I think the suspension geometry improvement and the stronger than stock parts would be the best improvement for handling.

I'd just like to see more aftermarket support for Fords other than Mustangs...

72FordGTS, Thanks for posting that link. I loved watching the upgrades done to one of my most favorite yr. Galaxies, 1964 being #1. I'm hoping Hotchkis does bring those pieces to market for our Torinos. Brian

I sent an email, no response yet. I'll post if they send something back.

So I got my response:

Hotchkiss wrote: This kit never went to production. It ended up being a one off for Jay Leno. Hotchkis will be closed from December 24th to January 2nd. Happy Holidays!

That's all they said, so I am assuming it's not going into production.

http://www.hotchkis.net/19651966_galaxie_front_sport_sway_bar.html

Edited by Billy C - 05-December-2012 at 1:51PM

Ian,

I think you are right about the camber/caster slots. When I had my car aligned this year I easily had around 3- 4 degrees caster, and there was still plently of movement left in the slots. It sounds like from Jay's video they could only get 1 degree of Caster with the stock arms.

I am just diasppointed because they said in the video they were going to make the parts. Really, all the R&D was done, it was just a matter of reproducing those arms, but obviously they figure there isn't enough of a market.