The II's are a uni-body car and have a very bad habit of the body twisting under hard acceleration.

I didn't even think about that. When I romp it, the body goes hard right and the engine goes (or appears to go) hard left; the tower o' carburetion rocks up nearly against the side of the hole I cut in the hood. Probably can't be good. Sure looks cool, though.

I'll play with the bottom latch mechanism, too.

So, the latch mechanism doe-see-doe is mostly trial and error, then?