It was a warm, sticky summer afternoon at Maryland’s Capitol Drag Raceway back in the mid-1970s. I was fresh out of high school when a ’63 Chevy II roared up into the staging lanes for a smoky stage.

Until recent years, the established method to attain independent front suspension was to weld a front clip from another vehicle under your stock chassis, usually a Mustang II crossmember, GM subframe, ...