Rat rod, what does it mean to you? To me it means laziness in a sense that you are to lazy or lack creativity when building a car. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t think every car should be a Boyd Codington custom but take some time to build your car. Now I remember when rat rods hit the scene they were pretty cool and some things were creative. Now a days rat rods have become to evolve into nothing more than a cast iron skillet with a 350 Chevrolet and a spatula for a seat. The people that build these cast iron skillets say “they want to honor hot rodders before them”. I am calling bullshit on this ladies and gents. In all the old hot rod picture archives I have never seen a rusted out shit box that was built on purpose. I look at these cars and see everything wrong with car building today. Everything is ordered out of a catalog nothing is matched right and there is no creativity. A buddy of mine has a rat rod that he paid cash for it looks ok to much rust for me but now after he has tore into it was really poorly built.
Lets talk about paint on these so called rat rods. Flat black, that seems to be the only color they offer for rat rods. I mean do you walk into the Napa or paint supply and say” I am building a rat rod” then they hand you a gallon of the worst black primer a person can buy. No look I am a big fan of a black car Cadillac’s, mercury’s and what not but not flat black. Make that bitch shine that’s what I say. What happened to taking time to actually give some thought to you paint color . This involves going to the paint store and sitting for hours looking at colors and wondering if you can mix two or three together to make the perfect paint color for you car. I mean you look at all the old Rat Fink pictures and the cars were colorful not just black.
So lets talk about the engine combo. Man these guys slap a 305 in a car and call it a 350. Now I am not a Chevy man and people know this but I do know that neither the 350 or the 305 are “old school” hot rod motors and that’s what you rat rodders preach isn’t it old school? If you are gonna build and old school hot rod to honor hot rodders before you wouldn’t you build a flat head, y block , 265 or even a W motor? Man I guess I will draw this to a close because I will get a lot of people bitchin if I really carry on this subject. I guess in the end if you want to build a true old school hot rod look at old popular mechanics or hot rod magazines from the 60s you wont see any rats in there. Be creative don’t follow the main stream make the car your own. Just cause everyone is turnin a model A or T into a rat rod does not mean you have to as well.
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