- Welcome to WQOW 18 news forecast.
And there are times in your life
where you don't wanna be the spotlight,
contrary to popular belief.
Sometimes we would rather be a supporting role,
versus, you know, the one that's getting judged
for literally every moment of your life.
Because when you're in the front seat
and you're driving the car, everybody's judging the speed.
So, you sit in the backseat,
you grab your headphones, you watch Attack on Titan
for the fourth time to see if you missed something,
while the driver deals with the angry passengers
and drivers that Houston beltways have to offer.
Which by the way, perks of living
in a tiny town in Wisconsin.
I don't have to deal with that.
Just people that don't know how to use their turn signals.
Sometimes, you want a car that's like that.
I'm Alex, @alex.fi on Instagram
and today we're gonna be talking about that lifestyle.
The lifestyle of being the unsuspecting,
until someone tests you the wrong way.
A type of car that makes you kind of feel
like a gifted child, okay?
The type of car that usually impresses absolutely no one,
until you inevitably pop up the hood at the gas station
and realize there's not one, but two Scrolly boys.
A car that makes you think to yourself,
on a Sunday afternoon, while you're bored like,
"Hey, we should, we should try that sometime."
Ladies and gentlemen, today we're gonna be talking
about you wanting to own a sleeper car.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Alex.
Don't forget to subscribe and if you're looking
for any sort of wheels, tires, or suspension
for your newly acquired sleeper car,
otherwise be sure to hit us up
over at fitmentindustries.com.
I feel like I should just get it tattooed right here
and, and, that would, I'd just do this.
You know what I'm saying?
But anyway, we also do have 0% financing.
So you pick up all your stuff now
and pay it off later with your tax returns.
If you are looking to actually get your project build
finished up before springtime.
Because lo and behold, February is coming, folks.
You want to know what's after that?
March.
You wanna know what's after that?
You guessed it, April.
And just so you know,
we do have a giveaway that were just launched.
Artista Artformed Wheels, Continental Tires,
and Fortune Auto Coilovers,
it's a full build giveaway.
And if you haven't actually checked out Artista,
it's our brand that we launched this year.
They're super light, they're deco directional,
monoblock wheels and we're really, really proud of them.
So if you'd like to check it out, you can go check them out
over a fitmanindustries.com.
You can pick up a t-shirt.
This is the Artista Titan.
I'm very happy with this one in particular
but that's because I designed it so don't judge.
The history of sleeper cars goes all the way back
to the days in the mid-50's.
It was pretty much coined after the term of sleeper agents.
Okay?
Which is practically like 007
but the American version.
Except the British sleeper cars were also previously known
as Q cars, which took after the Royal Navy.
There's all different variants of this
but essentially it's just little nicknames, okay?
Both of which have fancy agent-style names
but both of them look like the standard Joe Anderson
you'd find at the local mall.
Really there is nothing special about them
from an aesthetic point of view,
but the history of when we, the people,
decided to start loving owning things
that didn't look fast takes us actually back
to the days of the 50's and 60's
where automotive manufacturers were finding themselves
with the opportunity to stuff race spec engines
into production cars for the purposes
of a homologation, homologation, homologate-
That one.
The one brand that iconically decided
to really jump into this was not the Lamborghini,
it wasn't the Acura, it wasn't the Honda,
it wasn't Ford or Chevy.
Ladies and gentlemen, this came from (fart) America.
Okay?
The one company that decided to essentially say
"I'm gonna do whatever you want me to do
except when it's what we want to do
and not what the EPA wants us to do
because we have more money
than pretty much everyone else in the world."
And ladies and gentlemen, the name
of that brand was Chrysler.
Because it's, it's, you know,
it's from America and I want to sing it
but I feel like we're gonna get demonetized.
♪ America ♪
Many coin the '55 Chrysler 300 as one
of the starts of a sleeper car
where it was the first passenger car with 300 horsepower
and eventually 375 later in the trim ranges.
Many people do see this vehicle as one of the starts
in the domestic American market as a sleeper car.
And most of the people would look at this
as a high end luxury car, but doesn't really look that fast.
I don't know, sleeper car sort of thing.
Big horsepower, boring body sleeper.
And because of the 300, she was one of the most powerful
and unsuspecting platforms at the time.
This really founded the community for sleeper cars.
People that actually had a little bit
of extra money decided to get something
that was a little bit faster.
But domestic cars weren't the only ones starting to jump
on the train because as we jumped into the 60's,
very exciting time, Mercedes-Benz would soon to follow
through their 300 SEL AMG and the AMG lineup.
And as the dawn of racing really started to take off,
both domestically and internationally,
car manufacturers began to swerve large motors
into boring chassis to meet racing regulations specs.
Lancia would see a Ferrari V8 motor.
(computer clicks)
- [Computer] Lancia, Lancia.
- AMG would stuff all sorts of big motors
into small cars and so on and so forth.
And that was it.
As time progressed, this only happened more and more
until eventually people realized
that there's actually a good amount of money in terms
of up trimming large ass motors into tiny cars
that didn't really need any sort of body modifications.
Now in the 70's, everything had a small block V8,
it felt like, but it didn't inherently meant
that it was a sleeper.
Most sleepers were brought into this world
because some of the small racing teams
on some massive automobile companies
had a race engine laying around and a small budget
to pretty much squeeze it into a special edition.
And back in the day, it was actually really easy to get some
of these special trim special offerings out
into the market because dealerships had a lot more power
with their manufacturers.
And damn was it nice.
You'd see things like the Mart Mercury Marauder,
the Seventh Gen Impala SS, the Buick Regal GX
the Saab 9-2X, and the Taurus Sho.
Nowadays, sleepers are hiding everywhere.
Still because most automotive manufacturers are trying
to streamline their options.
Trying to make it like a smooth baby's bottom
when it comes to the engine lineups
across multiple different things.
Unless it's a baby force sander,
you gotta pump those numbers up.
The V8 you used to find in GM
would also be hiding in a Cadillac.
The WRX and STI shared all of their parts
with certain Outbacks
and the Volvo V70R's were just too boring
for your grandmother to not buy
and then store in a shed somewhere
for you to pick up as a ripe, young, 21 year old enthusiast
that didn't understand how much it was going
to cost to build it back up.
And that's just it.
Once car enthusiasts found out
what auto manufacturers were doing,
people started snatching them up.
People that had to get a station wagon for the kids
but wanted something quick
and fancy and could brag to their friends bought a V70R.
Needed a sedan?
Well, you better get the SS.
If you wanted it, hey, you can blame
that it had heated seats, it had a big trunk.
RS4?
Dude, all right.
Honey, listen.
All right?
It's just really RS stands for really sharp looking, okay?
And it's got cool seats.
Just whatever you do,
don't look at the monthly car payment or the depreciation.
But we're not here to talk about the history, okay,
of sleeping beauty cars.
Oh no, most of them aren't the prettiest anyways.
Okay?
I have, I love ugly cars and that's why I love sleepers.
No, we're here to talk about you wanting
to own one of these bad boys.
So you want a sleeper car?
Well set down your nine-year-old baseball cap
and grab your favorite oil cream
because we're about to sit down
and talk about what it's like to actually own
and if it's really worth it, maybe,
to get and pick up a sleeper car.
Owning a sleeper car is like having the sickest collection
of Pokemon cards, okay?
Before the whole Jake Paul hype or whatever his name is.
You almost have to talk about it
and teach people why a first gen card is so bad ass
before they appreciate the amount of money
or care you likely put into that very small piece
of firm paper or cardboard
or whatever fancy terminology they use these days, okay?
Sleeper cars, they're pretty much like that.
Many of which hold a special place in most people's hearts
but just not a large volume of hearts.
To most, the sleeper SUV that rips like a train
because it has the same setup
as the WRX won't really be noticed
until you convince your family to get in
so you can rip her around, maybe in a roundabout,
maybe take her over into a snowfield
and have a little bit of fun.
Only after will they question your sanity.
The same goes for the cars like the Volvo V70R.
which really the only thing that stuck out
on the car was a little bit more aggressive body lines
and the letter R, all right?
The Volvo V70R that you've spent more time than patients
on keeping rust away like an overactive fence player,
to most is just another wagon with a Buick logo.
It's not a Buick logo, but it does look like a Buick logo.
This is what you want, okay?
You want to be unsuspecting.
You want to be the one to beat the guy
that's showing off his base model Corvette.
Why?
Let me tell you.
Come in close, a little bit closer.
It's because it's fun.
It's the same reason it's fun to play Social Slayer
in Halo 2 when you're 50's and Lone Wolf in ranks.
It's just how it goes.
You like beating the living,
you know, you like winning
and with a sleeper car, it's way more worth it.
You (fart) at 'em and they didn't even see it coming.
The satisfying feeling is why sleepers exist.
They exist to serve a purpose above all else.
And that is unsuspecting fun, especially with other people.
But only one can be a little funky, mostly
because you have to stay within the aesthetic parameters
of what makes a sleeper car, a sleeper car.
And if you're gonna pick one up,
you have to decide if you're going new gen or old gen.
Old generations being things like the Volvo V70R,
where their strength is their greatest weakness,
rarity and platform support.
The cars are sick when they work.
And a lot of times these older generations are
a little bit like that.
They run trains when they work
and they're fun as hell when they work, you know?
And if they stay well behaved for you
then you slap a big turbo on it, exhaust intake,
and maybe some semi slicks on our OEM plus wheels,
and you're pretty much set to go.
As long as it works.
Want a new generation sleeper though?
You can do that there, too, bud.
You can grab yourself a Chevy SS and laugh your way
to the next stop light as you make most people cry
as to why a four door bus just beat any V8M3
that exists out there.
Even though it doesn't look like anything special.
I don't get it.
Domestic sleepers that are the new, new,
new generation do fantastic
with practically the same thing of an older car.
Just a lot of times
with no turbo and more cam and tune work.
Same thing though.
You get some lightweight Velgen wheels, some Nitto tires,
and probably some H&R lowering springs,
because a lot of times these new generations
sleeper cars are running on electromagnetic suspension,
so keeping the lowering springs
on it actually lowers the car, but keeps that customization,
and you're pretty much set.
There are a few cons to owning a sleeper car,
like the fact that you have
to keep your unsuspecting car looking unsuspecting.
No big wing gang.
No canards, they got to stay on your canard.
I don't know where that came from, okay?
But you pretty much got to keep that sort
of aero stuff on your air RC airplane.
You have to keep the aggressive stuff away from the car.
The diffuser should probably just stay plastic.
Hoods should just stay the normal painted colors.
You got to K.I.S.S. it, keep it simple stupid.
Don't come at me with all that other stuff.
Not only that, but generally working
on sleepers is a bit more tedious as the platforms are.
As they go and almost always have a smaller motor,
more space, less gadgetry, more simplicity.
This is why generally speaking with sleepers,
they require more maintenance
because they stuck more work, bigger engines
more complexity into the same body lines and body panels
and actual space as some of their base model cars.
And it's gonna take a lot more work
to get them kind of fixed up
and repaired and things like that.
And that's usually why people brag about the fact
that they own a 20 year old Volvo.
Because keeping it alive is sometimes worth
telling your friends over and over and over
until they get bored of it.
Because guess what?
When you have 450 horsepowers and you have a car that looks
like a hearse, you get to do that every once in a while.
But what do you think about sleepers?
Let us know below and if you're looking
for aftermarket wheels, tires, suspension,
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
Not figment, so many people saying fig.
(clears throat) Whether you have a sleeper car or not, too,
just so you know, we have a gallery.
It would be cool if you added it, fitmentindustries.com/add.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries
and we will see you later.
Peace.
(upbeat music)