Rat Rod Rant

[MrPeabody]

I actually like Rat Rods to some degree. My first reaction to them was that they hit the reset button on the car world, and provided a much needed slap in the face to the six-figure hotrod people that pay someone to build their cars and then pay someone else to detail them for the shows.

That being said, a few words to the Rat Rod community:

1. Your rusty car with plywood floors is not worth $30K, no matter how cool it looks.

2. A mexican horseblanket thrown over your seat is not upholstery. It was funny the first time I saw it, the 500th time, not so much.

3. Your frame does not have to be sitting on the ground for your car to look cool.

4. Paint comes in other colors besides flat black.

5. Back in the day when hot rods actually looked like this, we drove them and had fun, we didn't put them in car shows.

Rant Off. Carry on.

[DAB]

same holds for vettes.

drive them, enjoy them.

[C5Nate]

1. Played out years ago.

2. Shows least amount of effort and skill to build.

3. Feel like I need a tetanus shot every time I go near one.

4. They usually smell bad.

[Kerrmudgeon]

Rat rods are a rebellion against the high buck, chromed out, billet everything cars that the average guy can't afford. It's back to the roots of hotrodding where performance was the the first priority over glitz. They use their imagination and junk yard parts to express themselves and I think some of the results are outstanding. BUT, like any art form, there are good and bad.


BTW, I'm looking for some Mexican horse blankets(?) called serapes to cover my Corvette seats with!
They get HOTTER than hell in the sun.

[ConstantChange]

I'm hit and miss on "Rat Rods." Some are cool and show quality workmanship while others are complete pieces of crap.

A rat rod that isn't driven is just stupid. I thought that was part of the allure. It's not a "show car" so you don't have to worry about getting it dirty or scratched.

[ApexOversteer]

Give it a little time guys. Hot Rod fads have a tendency to fade, or morph into something else. Already you see the "Clean Rat" rods becoming more common. The whole Hot Rod lifestyle orbits two suns, "TechRod" and "NostaligaRod", everything else is evolution; birth-popularity-overexposure-death...

[ApexOversteer]

Originally Posted by Kerrmudgeon

Rat rods are a rebellion against the high buck, chromed out, billet everything cars that the average guy can't afford. It's back to the roots of hotrodding where performance was the the first priority over glitz. They use their imagination and junk yard parts to express themselves and I think some of the results are outstanding. BUT, like any art form, there are good and bad.

Exactly. Rat Rodding is the art of the Nostalgia Hot Rod seen through Rat Fink colored glasses.

Like I said, we can already see a segment of the hobby moving back toward center, but there will always be those that stay on the fringes. You just won't see them in every magazine, every single month.

[Grey Ghost]

I'll always pick original patina over anything else. I like some rat rods...the ones people put an effort into putting period parts on vs. billet/triple chrome, etc...I walk right by those anymore. I got tired of the deep clear coat paints that make a car look like it's in a plastic bubble too and trailer queens.

[BADRACR1]

Originally Posted by DAB

same holds for vettes.

drive them, enjoy them.

I drive all my cars, from the $100 Pontiac and $300 ass-bashed 65 Galaxie to the fully frame up restored 72 Camaro I had a few years back.

[ApexOversteer]

I've gotten to where what I look for in a Rod is Sanitary Traditionalism with useability concessions.

Patina is cool, but TechRods can't do patina. I'd prefer to start with brand-new Nostalgia and let the car earn patina.

For example, here's my perfect '32 High Boy... Henry Ford Steel, Ford-in-a-Ford power, manual shift, Stock-esque interior, hidden front discs... chrome where it should be, paint where it should be... drive it into the ground and rebuild it...

[Blademaker]

What my neighbor does for a living......

http://millscustoms.com/about.html



His daily driver..........Serious.......

http://millscustoms.com/forsale.html

[mrvette]

Pushing 30 years ago when my kids were new a neighbor friend with kids of same age and I met up, he was doing a resto on a V8 Ford '35-36? rumble seat convertible.....so he won several awards, after all that work he about broke even with rebuilding old sub assemblies like carbs and selling them,....so he bought it for 13 grand, won several trophies, and sold it some years later for only 15 grand....why?? no one cared anymore, it was a resto...

NOW had he taken my advice and put his efforts into making a hotrod out of it, he could have gotten 50 grand easy for a steel body convertible rumble seat FORD.....

REASON, the old farts are dead, the guys who want one remember them as hotrods...not as new cars....

[Mike Mercury]

dis iz cool !


What used to be a parts truck that should be 300-600 dollars tops... its now called a RAT ROD and they want 1500-2000 for it. Just because rats live in it doesn't make it a rat rod.

[MrPeabody]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

What used to be a parts truck that should be 300-600 dollars tops... its now called a RAT ROD and they want 1500-2000 for it. Just because rats live in it doesn't make it a rat rod.

There's people over on Jalopnik asking 20K for crap like that.

[Fastguy]

The cars people build in their backyards using common tools are cool. The cars built in a sanitary shop and then aged to look ratty are dumb. They are the automotive equivalent of acid washed jeans. The other problem is now it is cool to have a shitbox and call it a "rat rod". A 50's Ford race car rescued from a barn and made streetable without restoring the whole car is a rat rod. A rusted out 78 Thunderbird is not a rat rod, it is a shitbox. Like any trend, eventually it gets to an unuseable extreme, just like Pro Street did in the early 90's.
Seriously, WTF is the purpose of this?

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Waco

What he said.

NO SHIT!!!!!....Holy WHATever....

[l88rocket]

Personally I dont like rat rods. I want paint, real interior, etc..Like I say Just because you can build it doesnt mean you should..

[Fasglas]

Originally Posted by Waco

What he said.

Never was a fan of "Pro Built" hotrods.
Far more impressed with what could have reasonably been built in the owner's garage.

Apex's above...

[jda67gta]

Originally Posted by ApexOversteer

Beautiful...

[FasterTraffic]

Originally Posted by Fastguy

Seriously, WTF is the purpose of this?

To prove you can put wheels on a pile of s**t and make it roll.