How Detroit Speed's X-Gen Systems Allow Builders To Put Modern Suspension Technology Into Just About Any Vintage Project
It’s no secret that muscle cars of the 1960s and '70s were originally designed to perform at their best when pointed in a straight line, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add corner carving to a vintage machine’s repertoire. Back in the late 1990s, before the pro touring craze really took off, Detroit Speed & Engineering founder Kyle Tucker was a GM suspension engineer working on the Corvette development team by day and wrenching on his own projects by night.
Dissatisfied with the suspension and chassis components that were available at the time, Tucker decided to develop his own custom parts for a ’69 Camaro project that he was building for Power Tour, starting with components like tubular upper control arms to get modern geometry and more adjustability. His project, the Twister Camaro, went on to win awards like the Goodguys’ Street Machine of the Year, and folks soon started to take notice. “People started calling him asking how they could buy the parts that he had developed,” explains Chris Stein-Martin of Detroit Speed. “And that really got the ball rolling.”