Safety ideas for teen proofing the 68???

[General_01]

All I know is that I got into plenty of mischief with my mom's 4 cylinder '83 Omni and my dad's '77 Volare' with a slant six. 

Only you can judge the situation because your the one who has to live with whatever the outcome is.

[HANDM]

I have the very same dilemma with my daughter, I have promised her that the Challenger will ber hers to drive when in high school. She about floored me when out of the blue she asked when she could start driving it.
She has the grades and the driving skills (I trust her with my/ her Caddilac) it is just going to be the Insurance, fuel and potential breakdowns that I am worried about

The boy, on the other hand wants the Cuda but at least I have five years to deal with that one!

[Mike DC]

                

"Detuning" can be undone pretty quickly.  But if the car has a 318, the kid isn't gonna pull over and swap in a 440 a few blocks away from the house.


I'd probably just go with a carb-swap when the kid is gonna have the car.  Put a little 500 cfm carb onto it and he won't be able to get the speed up too fast.  


And if there's one thing that novice (hell, MOST) drivers cannot handle - it's bald tires in bad weather.  Replacing tires early and keeping the tread depth DEEP is cheap insurance.  Novice drivers have a real habit of learning the car's limits on dry pavement and then driving like it's no different in the wet.  You might not intend for the kid to ever have the car in the wet, but all it takes is one unexpected rainfall to get him into trouble.    

 

[myk]

Honestly I wouldn't let any young, inexperienced driver behind the wheel of an older car, definitely without supervision.  Cars like these, especially when they're closer to stock, are a handful to handle and require complete attention, both-hands-on-the-wheel type of driving.  Younger more inexperienced drivers are completely distracted and don't or won't drive in this alerted state; considering the lack of safety equipment in these cars, not to mention their sub-par handling and braking is just a disaster waiting to happen.  

Now, let's just say for discussion's sake that we have a highly competent teen driver that can handle an older car in a heightened state of awareness; what happens when the "stupid" friends or people come into the equation?  And all kids have stupid friends that are more trouble than they're worth.  It's a miracle what some people will do when they're being egged on, never mind when they're kids looking for approval.  They say that vintage cars are an old man's hobby.  Well IMO that's true for not only the financial part of it, but the added responsibility as well.  Just my  

[johnnycharger]

Change the speedo gear so that when he is showing how easy it hits 100mph, he's only doin 75!

[FastbackJon]

Change the speedo gear so that when he is showing how easy it hits 100mph, he's only doin 75!

That's a good one!

To sum up what everyone else has said.... good tires and brakes and....

It depends on the kid. If you have a smart kid that has a history of making good decisions, then I don't think there's a problem. If you have a "dumb" or immature kid with a powerful car, then you have a problem. And you can either attempt to solve it by dumbing down the car (detuning) or smartening/maturing the kid. I prefer the latter.

And as others have said, get him his own car that needs work before it's drivable. It will teach him a lot more. My dad had a nice restored '68 Charger R/T 440 when I was 13, but the first V8 I believe I ever drove was the rough primer '66 Charger 383 project we bought when I was 16. I learned to work on that car and fix a lot of things that I wouldn't have learned on the already restored car. Plus, having worked on it, a typical person takes more pride and is more careful with their own stuff than someone else's.

As for breaking down, I've been broken down many many times in that and later old cars! But again, it just builds character.

[440]

Ha ha, breaking down is all part of the adventure 

[Cooter]

Change the speedo gear so that when he is showing how easy it hits 100mph, he's only doin 75!

in a perfect world this would work well, but in the real world, all this does is cause the kid in question to realize that he was doing 100 MPH with a 318 2BBl and "Still had half pedal left". once his croney buddies find this out, they are gonna want to "See it proven". Well, here then lies the ever growing problem. Basically, it gets the kid caught "Fudging" his "Bench racing sessions" and embarassed. I've witnessed this personally with "Fake" dyno sheets at cruise night.

One guy had one on his windshield and was exclaiming how his BBC almost "Broke the dyno" it had so much power.
I slid up to the sheet and saw 1058 HP....I know it's bogus and waited for the mayhem to insue. Sure enough, dude was "Challenged" to prove his 1000 HP by a little Dodge Dart with a 360 Stroker in it.
Sure enough, the Dart came out on top. Dart's owner now "Exclaims" at every cruise night that his "Little" Dart smoked a 1000 HP Chevy.

[c00nhunterjoe]

I started saving every penny at age 12. By 15 I had 2 grand saved up and bought my charger. At 15 9 months I had a permit and started learning. At 16 I got my license. The big block charger was my daily driver all through high school. I burned out, I did donuts, I was even dumb enough to jump it one time. Other then the 1 instance of sheer stupidity jumping it, I behaved in it- respectivly. if I wanted to go 100 mph, I went to the track. If somebody wanted to race me, we went to the track. I'm now 28, and have yet to get a ticket in the car. The best thing you can teach him is common sense. Take the speeding and racing to the track where there are no crosswalks or grandma's pulling out in front of you. 

[lloyd3]

It's really a very simple equation. Young, inexperienced driver plus high-horsepower, low-technology car equals a huge learning curve, and this usually results in a smashed car or cars and injured kid(s).  Save yourself a lot of trouble and heartache, help him find a slant-six pickup with a nice paint job and let him learn reality in that first.

[model maker]

Very well said lloyd3
Bert

[GOTWING]

At 16 my first car was and is my 1973 Dodge Charger S/E 318 ( now has 340 ) anyway back then even that would do a honest 120mph top end. My father almost let me have a 63k orig mile 383 Roadrunner for $3000 but my Charger was only $1,200 used from the dealer back in the day. I was fine with the Charger,it was like new, i had duals put on it with Thrush turbo's and Cragar SS's mags with air shocks, it looked and sounded great, if i had the 383 roadrunner i would have most likely got in trouble with it, street racing etc. having a 318 Charger i was a cruiser kind of kid.