The Driving Standard : Nose Job

If you ever decide you don’t like your face you can simply get a new one with the help of modern science and a doctor with a tanning addiction. After weeks of swelling and healing you can be released into the wild a new, better looking person. The truth is…it works. I’ve seen people get plastic surgery and it does make them easier on the eyes. Large noses slimmed down, shark-like teeth fixed, shrinking this, enlarging those, and removing all of that. Yay science.

Your car can do this too. My first car was a Honda Del Sol and one of the coolest features about it, aside from the targa top and roll down rear window, was that it shared Civic parts. With some research and a tape measure I found I could swap the front end for a cooler Civic SI nose. I never did. One because at that time the Civic SI was still new and there hadn’t been enough time for them to be wrecked and tossed into the junk yards. Two, I was in high school and no one could afford an SI and even if they could they weren't going to trade for a front end from 1994. Three, I had spent all of my money on wheels and suspension.

Years go by; I sell the car and forget about swapping front ends forever. Until last month when I laid awake during the wee hours thinking how Chevy has now made the Silverado so ugly but at the same time made the Tahoe look so good. For years Tahoe, Suburban, and Silverado all had the same front end but now Silverado has its own ugly, stupid, individual identity. After slightly becoming annoyed I put the thought to rest and finally fell asleep. That next day I found myself typing “Silverado with Tahoe Front” into Google. Over 4 million results. I saw dozens of people who had done it; some with good results but most looked strange. Regardless, it did make me think of the dozens of other cars that you can do conversions to. I’m not talking about the those goofy swaps people do to a Honda with gallons of Bondo and a wrecked BMW. I’m talking about the ones that almost go unnoticed. The ones you drive by and wonder what’s different about that car that you can’t quite put your finger on. The swaps that are between like years and models so it looks as if it came that way from the factory, much like what originally started me on the idea for the Del Sol/Civic swap. Years ago people with the Acura Integra found out that the Honda Integra in Japan looked very different and quite a bit better. Companies started selling kits to convert your lame US Integra into a look-a-like JDM one. At that same time the kids with Nissans were doing the same thing with their 240SX and the overly aggressive looking S15 front end. Then came the Cadillac Escalade and the Silverado/Tahoe swap. But this isn’t really a new idea. Kids in the 50’s were doing this with Model As and Bs, and a lot of hot rodders still do today. One of the best stories I can think of comes from ICON’s Jonathan Ward and his success with the Chrysler/Desotoswap. Even if you don’t care about front end swaps its still a video worth watching. It somewhat touches on what I talked about in The Undesirables; having a car you can beat on and drive the wheels off. If you are interested in seeing front end conversions I've included some links with photos below.