Rat Rods - Feigned Ingenuity

[DEEPNHOCK]

An age old conundrum....
Rat Rods used to be a term applied to a build that was built out of available stuff to a bucks down person.
It (unfortunately to me anyways) morphed into a kind of cult machine that is intentionally built to look crappy.
Here's an example of wasted energy (IMOHO)....
Jeff

[ceecab]

yeah-but that one can be brought back, Most I've seen are so chopped up they bear little or no resemblence to anything ever built
There is a guy who frequents one of the large cruises in "Da Burgh' who drives a 47 olds [ I think} moredoor with no fenders, no front clip at all, with a Chevy mounted absurdly high. The engine has dual quads on a homemade tin tunnel ram and zoomie headers that stick at least a foot over the roof, almost bald mismatched tires, trailer lights hanging off the trunk area, Sadly, a close look at the car reveals a rust free body that was well worth restoring

[FlatheadGeo]

"...bucks down person..." Thesaurus says: CASO!!!

[63 R2 Hawk]

At least it gave this poor truck a reprieve from the crusher or being eaten by blackberry bushes......

[JimC]

You know what they say. Their money, their car, their decisions. At least they didn't do this to a pristine all original show quality truck.

I don't know, as far as rat rods go, this one doesn't bug me that much. Certainly not as much as the ones who buy a decent show car and then proceed to pour thousands of dollars into making it look like it was assembled during a drunken stroll through a scrap yard. Those are the ones that irritate me. This one actually has a sort of charm to it, considering that from the looks of the truck (unless the rodder is amazing at simulating decades of neglect), it was probably sitting in a field or barn just rotting away. Plus, as was already said, this isn't horribly butchered. The top hasn't been chopped to where only dwarves can drive it. There's not a front end from a Pontiac grafted on with a hundred pounds of bondo. What's more, this guy must be an SDC member, as evidenced by that very accessible fire extinguisher!

[Flashback]

As per Jeff:
Here's an example of wasted energy (IMOHO)....

Not that my opinion matters, BUT, This is a prime example of why I correct people when they call my 53 a "RAT ROD" There is a big difference in a Driver and a rat rod, if this thing is a rat rod.

[BobWaitz]

There are so many terms in hot rodding but there's not much agreement on their exact definition...

Except for all the crap in the pickup bed, it looks very much like my M5. I consider mine a mild rat rod. That one is more "extreme" with touches that make it less than useful as a truck. My goal was to get it driveable and leave the "making it nice" as a long-term project. I've got 3 functioning gauges: Oil Pressure, Water Temp, and Volts. I attached a nearly-obsolete GPS to the dash to function as a speedometer.

What I don't like about that example is how the pickup bed is wasted. It would have been rather easy to relocate the fuel tank under the back of the bed (I'm using a 73-76 Jeep CJ5 tank), moved the radiator where the old fuel tank was and he'd have the whole bed back. Heck, I had to flip the radiator around on the shell to get it to work with the 259. Unless he has a 426 Hemi under there, there is no reason he can't have the radiator under the hood. He's getting dangerously close to going from Rat Rod to Schlock Rod.

My favorite term: Flair (tip-o-the-hat to CT for that one). Flair comes from the movie Office Space. Jennifer Aniston works at a place like TGI Fridays. The numerous buttons on the vests are referred to as "Flair" with the implication being that more is better. Anything you see on a car that is purely decorative is Flair. My truck has no Flair whatsoever. The truck in the example has several pieces of Flair (shift lever, extinguisher, weird antenna, gauge in the back). I like cars that don't have excessive amounts of Flair.

[allstateguy]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying Bob. The first time I heard the term Rat Rod, it was a car that ran (often very well) but had either primer spots, some rust, dings etc on the outside, and maybe just one or two seats on the inside. Loud, functional, barely street legal, safe but not pretty. But Jeff is right, people building cars by this byline now are just going for crap value, Rube Goldberg style. Kinda like using a magnetic broom to sweep the screws, bolts, washers and swarf off the pavement. Then weld them all together and viola! Rat Rod!

[Gryphon]

See, that's just the trouble...there are so many definitions of Rat Rod. Some build it to be art and largely non-functional or a caricature of early hot rods ala Rat Fink cartoons. Others are built just to be purely drivers as opposed to a show car but have some nifty modern doodads on it such as air conditioning, power brakes and the like. However, this is just my understanding of the Rat Rod/Kustom culture.

v/r
Andrew

[aarrggh]

Looks to be this guy is having lots of fun and joy tinkering with a Studebaker that was probably left in some field abandoned anyway .
Thumbs up from me ...........

[DEEPNHOCK]

I'll bet he is, and am not condemning him...
I just question the logic behind expending energy to make it 'look' junky when that same energy could have been used to make it look nice.
Quality work, for sure... Fun... Sure... Different...you bet.
But faux junk is not real junk, I guess

Looks to be this guy is having lots of fun and joy tinkering with a Studebaker that was probably left in some field abandoned anyway .
Thumbs up from me ...........

[bob40]

Some folks like junky?
Same reasoning could be applied to nice and spending the time to clock every screw on a dash or bolt head on a engine.A effort in anal retentiveness I will never understand.
After reading the threads where decal placement has been argued and all other build threads I have come to the conclusion that if the owners happy I'm happy for him.

[rockinhawk]

As per Jeff:
Here's an example of wasted energy (IMOHO)....

Not that my opinion matters, BUT, This is a prime example of why I correct people when they call my 53 a "RAT ROD" There is a big difference in a Driver and a rat rod, if this thing is a rat rod.

Tex, I think your car would fit more in the "Lead Sled" category than Rat rod Status. But imho, The Sat. Nite Special is in a class of it's own.

[Flashback]

Thanks for the nice words Neil. I really didn't mean that some rat rods aren't nice. Most of them don't appeal to me. But, I am sure, my 53 don't appeal to a lot of people. To each his own.