(left) Typical of modern Donks, this 1972 Chevy Impala convertible has a near-stock fender-to-wheel clearance even with 26-inch rims. (right) The current interior fashion is to take the stock look and upgrade it with custom materials.

Like Kleenex for tissues, Donk has become a generic term for custom cars riding high on big wheels. Within the scene, however, this generalization is frowned upon. Donk refers to a 1971–76 Chevy Caprice or Impala, exclusively. “That’s it,” says Sage Thomas, better known as Donkmaster, whose shop, In & Out Customs, is in Charleston, South Carolina. “It can be a two-door or convertible, or four-door, or station wagon, but it has to be that year, specific. No other one.” There are no arguments about the preferred nomenclature, even if the origin of the word itself is uncertain.

This story originally appeared in Volume 30 of Road & Track.

Kenny Lewis, the founder of I-95 Motorsports in Oakland Park, Florida, agrees. “Monte Carlos, Cutlasses, the Rivs, they’re not Donks,” he explains. “It’s only a specific car that’s a Donk.” Lewis is widely considered a pioneer in the big-wheel field. He remembers taking notice of Donks as a teen, with their candy paint, Cragar 30 spokes, and Vogue tires. A car built in that style today could be called old-school. It wasn’t until the early 21st century that the current Donk look started to emerge.

1971 Impala Impala dragster

As an intern with Arelli Wheels around that time, Ron Baugh noticed a surplus of large-diameter-wheel orders for installation on the ’96 Caprice and Impala SS (the proper non-Donk moniker is Bubble). “There was this one shop in Atlanta, called Big Chrome, and they were the first ones,” says Baugh, who now works for Wheel Pros. “They were installing lift blocks and putting 22s and 24s on these cars when there were no real low-profile tires available.”

Wheels like Arelli’s Laced Hangtyme were designed for trucks, and tires in those sizes came with tall sidewalls that made fitment complicated. The aftermarket was slow to respond with suspension parts, so from about 2003 to 2008, Lewis and early builders made it work. “I put a Jeep front axle in the car, straight axle. I did probably hundreds of those cars like that. Nobody was going to make us a spring,” Lewis says, “so you just started trying to move stuff, make things fit.”

Thomas remembers the era too. “I’ve even seen when they did body lifts to where they actually put a four-inch piece of metal in between the body and a frame to get the wheels up under the car,” he says. “If you’ve seen a lot of pictures from back in the day, you might see the frames hanging from under the cars.”

Using his street-racing background and suspension knowledge, Thomas started to fit big wheels while maintaining a streetable ride height. His shop specializes in high-performance Donks, and he formed a drag-racing series, the National Donk Racing Association.

Sage Thomas with a 1971 Chevy Impala Dragster

Lewis says the emergence of large-diameter, low-profile tires marked a turning point. Aftermarket suspension kits followed, and cars got lower and better engineered.

The arms race around wheel size seems to have cooled. “They realized that those wheels and stuff aren’t fun to ride,” Lewis says. “They’re going from 26s down to 24s.” Body lifts, cut fenders, and off-road axles have given way to neatly tucked wheels and near-stock ride heights. Molded interiors with modern seats and screens have shifted to an upgraded original look. Underneath and under the hood, the cars look ready for Autorama. They don’t teeter around like monster trucks. They go, stop, and handle. They’re reliable. The form has matured.

As for the origin of the Donk name, a popular legend centers around someone mistaking Chevy’s Impala logo for a donkey, but Lewis himself has only heard it secondhand.

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