Rat Rod History - Hot Rod Magazine

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Rat Rod History - Order Rodentia

R AT R O D S H AV E B EEN G N AW IN G AT TH E M AIN S TR EAM FO R N EAR LY 15 Y EAR S . AN D W IN N IN G . H ER E'S A P O P H IS TO R Y .
By David Freiburger, Photography by David Freiburger, The HRM Archives, Tommy Ivo, Wes Allison
Hot Rod Magazine, November, 2010
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We're talking about the biggest craze to hit the gearhead world since Pro Street in the '80s. It's had traction for at least 15 years. No one wants to admit it, no one wants to talk about it, and virtually no one can define it. That is, at least no one within the walls of publishing giants or speedparts empires. "Ignore it and it'll go away" has failed. But the guys on the streets? They get it. Implicitly. They may hate it, but they get it. More likely, they'll claim they've been into it since way before it went mainstream.
Brad Roorda's '29 Ford roadster pickup The it is rat rodding. And, yeah, no one can really pinpoint what that is the perfect talking point for slicing into means; four of our contributing pundits fed us the famed line, "I know it today when I see it." That's curious, because even scenesters who enjoy a chorus of "I hate labels" can describe the defining elements of, say, a fad T, a resto rod, a lakes roadster, or a Watson-inspired custom. C'mon-you know what a rat rod is. Or do you?
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HRM's Gray Baskerville is sometimes credited with coining rat rod and once told us it was a spin on motorcycling's term rat bikes for fun rides that are thrown together with little regard for aesthetic or societal acceptance. Rat rodding started out in the mid-'90s as a fast and loose deal in which guys built fairly retro-correct but primered and dirty hot rods, and it pretty quickly spun into a scene loaded with rusty rods built from castoff parts for dirt cheap and with a proud finger to The Man-that being the lawn-chair-rodding crowd-who reacted predictably with outrage, formed industry committees against rat rodding, and started using the term rat rod with the same intonation as S.O.B. Funny thing is, the uptight crowd eventually embraced the rat styles as their own when they realized that rust-perforated Model A's with grass fringe on the headers were siphoning crowds away from the billet rods. Brian Setzer once said the Stray Cats had been euthanized the day the band's T-shirts hit department stores. Going mainstream is usually a postmortem, but in the case of rodent rides, the young guys with the cuffed pants pretty quickly learned that the graybeards still remembered a thing or three about life in the '50s, and pretty soon those 60-somethings were building retro rods of their own. Pure hot rodding was reborn, a massive nostalgia trend changed the face of the hobby, abandoned barns started regurgitating gennie old rods, and everyone learned the word patina. Ironically, that's about the time that some of the rat rodders decided they didn't like to be called rat rodders and got cliquish and uppity themselves, commonly making statements along the lines of, "The term rat rod should be struck from the English language." Yep, there are rebels against the rebel hot rods. It seems every generation eventually needs to be reminded that half the reason for hot rodding is outsidership.
Inspiration for rat rods can be traced to the '20s, w hen guys haphazardly w hacked parts of
Just because there is a historic precedent does not mean it's smart to replicate it now . T
Today, the legacy of the early rat rods is very broad. High-end retro has been spun into countless variants on one end of the craze, and at the other are the ever-shifting styles of rat rods, rat customs, and even rat street machines and trucks. The trend quickly rocked into the '60s styles; nosebleed-stance '55s are the new red '69 Camaro, and "D/Gas" has been lettered on the sides of all sorts of cars that could have never legally raced in D/Gas. All sorts of bitchin' new old parts have become available. As Street Rodder's Tim Bernsau recently quipped, "We're starting to lap ourselves."
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In 1982, HOT ROD featured its first primered car on the cover, the Eastw ood & Barakat '32 If this car rolled into a show today, w ould you call it a rat rod? It's got the cues: sued In Dec. '94, HOT ROD ran a story called "Street Sleepers and Rusto Rods," glorifying beate
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Some fans point to Jim Jacobs' mid-'80sbuilt '29 tub-painted w ith a brush at a Goodguys s
A lightning rod for the rat movement w as the original HOT ROD Deluxe magazine, w hich had t
While the publishing underground w as festering w ith rat rodding, it w ent mainstream w hen t
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Wherever you look, rust is in-but going viral did have glaring drawbacks. The stuff ain't outlaw anymore, which softens the bite. The new clichs are beer-can overflows, ever-increasing rafts of old carbs, iron crosses everywhere, and miles of pinstriping. Another downside: Readers often tell us that HOT ROD as an entity is supposed to spare judgment on people's cars . . . but c'mon-there's some plenty horrid examples of rat rods out there, as there always are when hot rodding art becomes interpreted by guys who have neither the eye nor the subtlety for it. Speaking of which, rat rods have also led to what we don't mind calling the single most ridiculous fad ever: fake patina.
As the trends have matured, the definition of rat rod has changed. Longtime rodding scribe Pat Ganahl delivered us a broad look at the current lay of the land: "I see what are referred to as rat rods today comprising three elements: First are the traditional rods and customs. Those are cars built the way rods were built in the '30s, '40s, and early '50s, with a primary emphasis on low-buck and homebuilt, using period-correct components ranging from flathead to nailhead engines, wide whitewall tires to skinny blackwall bias-plies, and black primer to hand-rubbed paint. If they're built the way most rods were built back then, sorting the chassis and doing the bodywork came first, paint hopefully came later, and some nice upholstery to replace the original or a blanket came last. But the point was to build the best car possible, given available funds and/or talent, and to keep improving it as you went." These pure retro cars in primer are often called rat rods by outsiders, but the owners are quick to vehemently reject the term. They are just building hot rods. Ganahl kept rolling: "Second are what I personally call rat rods, as a positive term. These are rods and
In 1995 and 1996, HOT ROD declared beaters a hot trend for the year. To support that, w e f
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customs built the way Ed Roth painted them on sweatshirts. They're artistic, fun, and sensational reinterpretations of late-'40s/early-'50s hot rodding as a culture that includes music, clothing, hairstyles, and tattoos. The cars are low, loud, chopped, unpainted (or scalloped, flamed, or lettered), with giant rear tires, lots of carburetors, open pipes, and tall gearshifts. The customs can have slit windows and scrape the ground. Few cars in the '50s looked like this, but today they can, in countless creative and fun ways." HOT ROD has recently called these caricature rods. They can be very well done, and the fabricators are usually outraged at their creations being tagged rats. Their cars don't have to be era correct at all-they generally have a vintage vibe, but they might mix and match parts from different eras. In our opinion, it's these cars that are driving the craze, though the marketplace has failed to come up with a descriptive tag for them. Too-Tall Ganahl again: "Third are what used to be called schlock rods or shot rods and what I derisively call crap rods today. They've always been part of the mix, unavoidably. I take exception to those who think that shoddy construction is somehow cool, or worse, those who know they can throw a bunch of junk parts together and peddle it as a cool rat rod to some inexperienced buyer who doesn't know the difference." In our opinion, there are plenty of these poorly built cars of all build styles. There's a fourth category that's emerged, and it's for guys who really glom onto the rat rod moniker. Their cars don't have to be era correct at all, and they might not even be based on a recognizable body or a traditional rod of any kind. They often over-rely on accessories such as iron crosses, rubber rats, beer-tap shifters, mailboxes for air cleaners, and stylized spider webs all over everything. They are generally disproportional and thrown together.
This Model A is often seen at the retro events at California's Auto Club Famoso Racew ay ne
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In 2005, the spit-shine w orld of Autorama indoor car show s accepted the primered w orld int
At the very leading edge of the trend, as a micro niche, is the grow ing fascination w ith r
Gassers are super hot. So are rat rods. It's a quick leap to create the rat gasser.
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Rat rod or hot rod? Perhaps your answ er w ill be influenced by the know ledge that this '29 w as a recent barn find. It w as built by Stan Moss in Gilroy, California, betw een 1941 and 1948, according to current ow ner We've rarely seen a rodding trend soCharlie thoroughly derided as the latter two Hascall.
rat rod scenarios described here, as they're hated by industry leaders and vintage purists alike. Josh Russell is both: He's the director of sales and marketing for Raybestos Brakes in the online, performance, and racing markets but also a member of Chicago's Chrome Czars Motor Club, which annually hosts the Hunnert Car Pile-Up, one of the largest pre-1964 traditional-style hot rod and custom shows in the country. He says, "To me, a rat rod is a vintage car that's been hacked together with whatever used and rusty parts are available to the builder, without much discretionand typically without a targeted era or style in mind, other than perhaps shock rod. A rat rod's build construction is often suspect, without much regard for safety, proper engineering, or design sensibility. They often have excessive, welded-on spikes, spears, or other rusty garbage for no apparent or functional reason, or obviously mismatched, modern-looking IFS may have an obnoxious mix of billet and rusty parts.
Some of the most cartoonish rat rod spin-offs are the megasized bobber trucks that are bei
and engines on a retro body. They
"To be clear, though, I really admire low-buck, homebuilt, real-deal hot rods and customs. And who doesn't love scoring parts for your project from swaps, barns, and junkyards?" For even more outraged commentary, we went to the entertainingly opinionated Brad Ocock, a freelance journalist for titles including our own HOT ROD Deluxe. Watch this: "There's a huge difference between rat rod and beater. A beater has potential. A rat rod is something someone threw together to make a statement, and usually that statement is, 'I don't know how to weld. I had a bunch of crap lying around and realized there was enough to put together a car but didn't want to put any effort into it.' Or, 'Look at me!' Or, 'I'm an idiot.' It's intentionally using junky parts and nothought stereotype stuff like Pabst Blue Ribbon-can velocity stacks and iron crosses, cartoonish stances and proportions, and poor form over function, like 4-foot-tall gearshift levers sticking out of the roof." Too much hate? There's more love in the words of Brian Brennan, editor of Street Rodder and editorial director at Rod & Custom magazine (and a Street Rodder staffer as far back as 1971). He has this to say: "The rat rod has evolved over the past 15 or so years and so has the definition. In the beginning, the name categorized a style of hot rod lacking in mechanical performance, frills, and refinement but long on
Everyone know s that Mexican blankets, available at any Southw est kitsch store for $8.99 a
In years gone by, you'd never see anything like this at the annual L.A. Roadsters show . No
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spirit, intent, and creativity. Economics drove the initial movement as well as the desire to be different. Embedded in the hot rodding DNA is the desire to be fresh, creative, innovative, and possibly exist outside the bounds of civilized society. The early days of rat rodding (wow, rat rods have history!) allowed young men the chance to have something that was clearly recognized as their contribution, and within this spirit was ingrained the lone wolf mentality. "Today, the early rat rod build style still exists, but early rat rodders have grown older and their desires and tastes have grown. I won't use the word sophisticated, but clearly the rat rod build style has evolved. Also, rat rodding has absorbed older guys. The popularity of the rat rod should be credited with the growth in purely traditional build styles, from '40s era-correct cars to '50s and '60s styles. The list goes on, and the longer the list becomes, the more entrenched and solid our hobby/sport becomes."
To our eye, the most appealing kind of beater is an original body w ith a perfect patina of
This '37 Ford really spun our crank w ith its rat finish and a tire and w heel package-and s
Another take on the rat rod is w hat some call art cars. These can be virtually any year, m
Ganahl had a good take, too: "Rat rodding emphasizes the fact that, whereas rodding was once strictly fad driven, today you can build any style or era of rod you want: high-tech/low-tech, modern/old, big bucks/low-buck. It has obviously brought a lot of younger, fresher, new blood to hot rodding that was otherwise atrophying, if not literally dying off. Actually, I believe that hot rodding, in one form or another, will always be part of American culture, and rat rodding is just one more example of it reinventing and revivifying itself. And it's influencing American popular culture in a stronger, more positive sense than street rodding or drag racing was doing otherwise. Finally, take a look at the rapidly growing number of parts being offered for obsolete engines, not to mention brandnew old parts like Ardun heads and S.Co.T. blowers. Look at the huge rejuvenation of racing at Bonneville, plus the overwhelming popularity of
Many critics despise vintage themes blended w ith billet parts on rat rods, but Frank Reed
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vintage drag racing and reunions over Pro events." You get the idea. The entire movement has influenced the world of car building far more than anyone could have expected 15 years ago. All that's left is to decide if you really want your next beater project to be called a rat rod or not. We got a pretty good perspective on that conundrum from Dave Wallace Jr., a former Drag News and HRM staffer who grew up with fuel cars and has no personal allegiance to nostalgia hot rods, but who first dove into the rat scene at the second Billetproof show in 1998. D2 says, "Nobody could've convinced me prior to the mid-'90s that my more-door '61 Mopar would ever be allowed into any car show area, let alone welcomed enthusiastically. Civilians on the street also have a new attitude about and appreciation of that beater; a quick ride yesterday inspired three different people to approach me. Two of them uttered the term rat rods in the course of brief conversations, indicating that the term now encompasses the wide range of vehicles and is obviously sticking with the population at large-whether we like it or not. "I'm reminded of the evolution of the term funny car (lower case), originally a derogatory description of crudely altered production cars that was despised by their builders and drivers (who argued for handles like fuel coupes and ultra stockers, to no avail). Over their objections and the subsequent 45 years, Funny Cars (upper case) are among the most respected and most popular race cars in motorsports. I have a hunch that rat rods are following the same path. Once the general public adopts any such term, attempting to revoke it is like pissing into the wind."
Many top show s now offer a Suede Palace, as seen here at the '10 Grand National Roadster S
Here's some creativity. This '55 or '56 Plymouth seems to have started life as a sedan or
It's a '30/'31 Model A built like a streetgoing Comp Coupe w ith a cross-ram 348. Who's to
These are the types of rough hot rods that w ere first called rat rods in the mid'90s, bef
Squeak Bell ow ns this amazingly burnished '32 sedan w ith nailhead pow er that runs 12s at t
This '53 Ford racing at El Mirage proves that the SCTA is overlooking the rule about how e
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One of the challenges of rat rodding is to use the least expected castoffs in the most unu
Sean Hartman had a stroke of genius-or just a stroke-w hen he built this 6x6 rat out of a '
While rat rods used to be all about vintage tin, the no-holds-barred styling extremes are
This Chevy truck w ears its all-original paint but it's all been preserved under a shiny cl
Rolling Bones is the shop du jour for real traditional-style hot rods that can truly be dr
Another spin-off on ratty hot rods is the rat muscle car. It's tough to w alk this line w it
Is This a Rat Rod? We photographed Brad Roorda's '29 roadster pickup during the '10 HOT ROD Power(r) Tour because we thought it carried a great stance and a lean-and-low, proportional look, plus he was having a riot driving the thing and not really caring what anyone else thought. The car is not retro correct with its modern engine and radial tires, and it's a not a rubber-raton-the-cowl kind of car. So is it a rat rod? Here's what our panel had to say.
Our cover car is Brad Roorda's ride, No: Josh Russell says, "While it's not exactly traditional, and it's w hich he describes as just a hot rod. certainly rough, I still wouldn't call this a rat rod. My hope would be that It's based on p the builder is just enjoying it while the project is still in progress. But on the whole, it has the makings of a hot rod. Even while using scavenged parts, the builder still has a sensibility for what homebuilt, work-in-progress rods could have looked like in the '40s and '50s."
Yes: Brad Ocock rants, "Yeah, that's a rat rod. Besides the damn tractor grille, it's unsafe as hell. There are obvious issues with the scrub lines: a flat front tire is gonna dig that framehorn into the ground, while a rear flat is going to drag the body behind the door. But what's really idiotic is thinking the split wishbones are strong
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enough to weld a bracket into the middle of them, mounting the buggy spring to them, and then expecting that they won't crack or fold with the leverage of that front axle and tires being way out ahead of the mounting point. Plus, the tubing for those '40 split wishbones was never meant to support the weight of a vehicle-it was only to stabilize the axles fore/aft. And zip-tied beer cans aren't supposed to be an aesthetic component." No: Brian Brennan says, "To me, this isn't a rat rod. It doesn't exemplify the necessary markings such as creativity and freshness. A car that's unpainted, sans interior, lacking in the finer graces of proper fitment and manicured components isn't necessarily a rat rod-and this ain't! This is a compilation of parts: some good Model A roadster pickup components, possibly a Model A frame with the body channeled over it, a six-cylinder with a late-model ignition and multicarb setup, a Case tractor grille shell (I have one of those at my house in Idaho-and that's where it belongs!), and an early stock I-beam axle and split wishbones. Splitting wishbones is never a good idea, even if hot rodders have made it work for eons. I realize many examples of the earliest rat rods were pretty scary pieces of hot rodding, but if you could get past this, you could see some genuine creativity and fresh thinking. Unsafe rods, cars lacking in creativity, and cars assembled with little or no regard to builders' intent aren't rat rods. They are what they are-lost and aimless wanderings."
Inside are some very nonretro items such as the sw itch plates and the cutdow n, third-gen C
Yes: Pat Ganahl says, "I definitely would say this is what most people call a rat rod today. I'd call it that. I think cars like this are cool. The three-carb six is neat because it's different and inexpensive. But I'd do several things differently if it were mine. It looks like he has a cross spring hooked to the split radius rods at the same point as the shock absorbers. Early Ford wishbones aren't made to be load-bearing pieces. The cross spring really should be attached to the axle, and a dropped axle isn't that expensive. One thing many get their shorts in a bunch over is radial tires-which this car has-but the only thing that bothers me about his is that the fronts are a bit too big. And I'd try for more imaginative wheels/hubcaps. I know people who would even quip over the HEI-type distributor. I wouldn't use it on a car like this-but I don't really care if he does. I also think pinstriping on rusty metal is silly, but I like to sand and paint things. To each his own. That's the real fun of hot rodding."
Extra low ness is a key to the stance of many rat rods and hot rods, but rats can do it in
The engine is a late-model Ford 300ci inline-six w ith a Duraspark distributor throw ing off
This is the kind of w ork that lends some bashers to call this a rat rod. Booger w elds and
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See all 39 Photos

By David Freiburger
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