What is a Rat Rod ?
I been building Hot Rods all my life my first was a 35 ford two door when I was 15 in 1975. I guess by todays standards it was a Rat Rod then it was a Street Rod. Today I drive a 1959 chevy pickup slammed black primer and flames it si my every day driver for more than 3 years. To me it is a Hot Rod.


As I see it there are two groups out there first a 50's style Hot Rod then the Rat Rod they build today rusty old parts put together to make a car, which is fine. But I don't think they represent the cars of the 50's 60's.
What do you guys think.
Sheldon

The first time I saw the words "rat rod" in print was a story in Rod & Custom magazine about the Shifters (SoCal) CC and their rides at Paso Robles, circa 1995. I think that the cars represented not so much a time period as an attitude.

Just like punk rock was a backlash against the overproduced excesses of mainstream rock in the 1970's, rat rods were a backlash against the overproduced excesses of the hot rod scene of the late 80's and early 90's. The high-end street rod (trailer queen?) was in its heyday, and everything was billet aluminum, shiny paint, graphics, big names and big money. Rat rods took that world and turned it upside down. Sure, they incorporated elements of the 40's and 50's style in their rods, but I think the idea was more about functionality and fun, rather than fit and finish. There was also a good measure of D.I.Y involved, a throwback to the blue collar roots of rodding, at a time when everyone was paying much dough to have someone else build a car for them.

I think you're right about the different schools of thought here Sheldon. There is a 50's style rod, and then there's a rat rod. While the rat rod can have elements of traditional hot rod in it, it isn't meant to be a traditional rod. The same thing applies to customs, too. I don't think the rat rod genre is meant to represent 50's hot rodding in total. It's certainly a separate thing.

FWIW, I think your '58 is just too cool, no matter what you want to call it.

-YL

I'm from the south so ya'll probably won't agree with me but:

Hot Rod = cool cars that rich guys build with skill and credit cards.
Rat Rod = cool cars that poor guys build with whatever is laying in the shed...or the junkyard.

Hermon

Put that way Herman I would have agree with you also.
Sheldon

Nice Truck

See, I guess it depends on your location....up here, a ratrod can go two different ways;
1] an old vehicle that is pieced together with whatever is found, good or mostly bad.
2] all the money is put towards the motor and drivetrain and little is towards the body and that includes minimal paint for the body. Hotrods get the whole package done up nice...ratrods can have and chopped body, but no real emphisis is given towards the paint, which is usually done in the old suede paint job tradition with primer{s}.

I was digging around my magazine stash (yes, I have one of those, too) when I found the following in an old issue of Ol' School Rodz magazine (#11, Sept. 2005, p.46), in a story about the Shifters CC:

OSR: So let's talk about the term "rat rod". Where did it come from?

Kevan Sledge: Anthony Castaneda made up the term "rat rod". He was going to some motorcycle shows in the early '90s and kept seeing these hard-ass bikes called rat bikes. Dirty, rusty, old, oil-drippin', hard lookin'. You know, the real bikes.
Anyway, they stuck in his head and in '95 David Featherston was doing a photo shoot with all our cars and he was interviewing all of us. He asked Anthony how he would describe our hot rods. He replied, "They're like rat bikes but cars, so I guess they're rat rods." David wrote it down. When he did the article for R&C, "rat rods" was what the caption read.

It stuck. Every car show, swap meet, etc., someone was saying "Hey, it's the rat rods!" when we would walk around with our jackets.

-YL

As someone who rode a "Rat-Bike", and even worse, a "rat bike with a raft", I can assure you I always took the remark as a term of endearment. While others were busy washing and polishing or servicing or sent theirs out to Harley, I was on the road, picking bugs from the teeth.

I can relate, afew years of riding my old Kawi H-2 750{3 cylinder / two stroke motor}, seemed every light someone had to yell out, "hey, your bike is smoking...to which I replied, God I hope so" and then proceeded to gun it off the light.

I have a old Yamaha DT175 enduro. The license plate frame reads "Two-stroke bike. SMOKE HAPPENS."

-YL