Car Krush Feb 20, 2026

155. The Pile Up: Brain Buster 12

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Term

lead sled

A lead sled is an old car that has been changed a lot to look different and lower to the ground. The term comes from using a heavy material called lead to fix the car's body back in the day.

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Emily BB12: Thanks for joining us Rose BB12: Yeah, I think I do. Uh, you know, I had to reach out to Coop minutes before the show.

Emily BB12: You sure are.

Like it's just, it's not out there. I know it's not

You know, like, oh, I had to go ask one of the bosses, uh, you know, if they can answer this question for me, and then somebody says, oh yeah, sure, yeah, I bet you got a hammock you need to stand up into, you know, like, I don't know, uh, Hailey's phrase ass over tea kettle. You know, you, you gotta learn phrases like this.

Rose BB12: wet and wild, but there's no van on it whatsoever. And we have the shirt. I don't know if Kristen has it or if I have it, but we had the wet and wild shirt for a while because people, for whatever reason, would just sort of unload all their old t-shirts on me.

Rose BB12: like number one favorite shirt is like a crew neck sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.

Rose BB12: you had, I would've turned right around and like, you're not gonna believe what Emily said about you. And then you'd be like, who's that?

He answered, but he was like at two in the morning. He's, he's always so good natured in putting up with our shit. There was a year at the Nationals the first year that Mark came with us and Mark camped in the tent and like Coop had this, it was so rainy again. We were all in his mud. Yeah. But Coop had bought a mirror from somebody or something, and a mirror.

Emily BB12: oh, the plex. Yeah. God, those are fucking awesome.

Emily BB12: 86 or seven. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sweet.

The guy that ran the truck in was a friend of somebody from Rocky Mountain Vans. It was poorly run the T-shirt didn't even have a van on it. It was hotter than blazes. We were promised the campground ended up in an open field with no facilities. Oh no.

Emily BB12: Oh, that's Rose BB12: do it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. For all we know. That's all there is No additional letters.

And I was like, your car's got doodads. And she was like, what are doodads? So then we asked everybody around the office what doodads were. Yeah, I've gotta say the word really did not hit with people. But I, I wanted to ask this guy, but he is just like, I, I really was afraid he was gonna gimme the dial tone because he was, you know, he is just like pleaded dockers guy, you know,

Rose BB12: I should have been like, yeah. I just didn't know if I wanted to tell him that we did a show. But I think I should have been like, oh, I listen to a radio show with a, with a trivia thing and

Emily BB12: I think it was maybe hard for people to find that one. Yeah. And Gina, you are absolutely correct. That is the loose definition of what a lead sled is. Um, it's generally a mid-century, round bodied, heavily modified car. And they're. Chop. So I'm gonna just go through the list of the things.

Some of the common late model LEDs. Sleds are a 49 Mercury 50 Plymouth, 49 Ford, and a 49 Cadillac, and Gina was exactly right. The lead refers to the lead that was used as body filler at the time. Because that is the technology that they had. And lead is very heavy. So that referred to the cars were older heavy cars with maybe some of them had a bunch of lead in them.

I can't imagine how much skill that must have taken. The sled part refers to the car, sort of like slip siding down the road because it's so lowered. And then what else? Oh, this is interesting. I thought you might really like this tidbit is among aircraft nicknames. A lead sled has also been used for a nickname for a variety of US military aircraft.

Emily BB12: probably, yeah. And maybe they used lead for weight. 'cause lead is so heavy, you know, and then the recoil, maybe the softness sort of absorbs some of the recoil.

Rose BB12: the Winfield Award was chopped, channeled, sectioned. And the lowered, I don't remember, maybe it's, it's chopped. It's channeled. Sectioned.

It's pretty sad that he's gone. You know, it's hard to think back. I mean, you know, you can't talk about a lead sled and not talk about Gene.

That's Gene giving a tour. He was giving a museum tour, you know what I mean? Like, he's like, I got all, it's funny 'cause I was listening to it and I was thinking about it. It's almost like he's, he's not really apologizing to me like he is. I mean, gene was apologetic. He didn't, he wanted me to come up and do something.

Rose BB12: there's definitely a picture where the Jade Idol is in the background. He'd just repainted the Jade Idol legendary after he'd scraped all the paint off with a razor blade.

I'll torch weld them. And so I was like, I'll just hammer weld them an inch at a time and they'll look good.

Rose BB12: And it was just beautiful. And I remember, it might have been that time, but it probably was later. I would very intentionally ask him questions and I was like, gene, when they come out Bondo and he's like 56, but I didn't use it till 57. You know, he'd have these very specific

I'm gonna ask a question outta what somebody's been writing me about. What does the acronym FED stand for? Fed?

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155. The Pile Up: Brain Buster 12

lead sled

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