Equal time complaint: The bad side of Rat Rodding

OK, bunkie ... you say you want to build a back to basic Hot rod. Then do it the right way.

Can anyone tell me the difference between complaining about "perfectly good" old cars, "going to rust" sitting in a farmer’s field because someone is unwilling to allow all us "hungry" car guys to save them, turn them into something good. Verses cutting them up - and still letting them go to rust... maybe its the good of letting them go to rust, while sitting on wheels?

Or maybe... it’s the fact that the owner/builder got in over his head, doesn't have the knowledge, skill, wallet – the testiculos to recognize his limitations, the cojones to finish what he started. So he puts together a "blue wrench" collection of parts. (blue wrench - means welded together, usually with a gas welder. It’s even easier today, since MIG/TIg welding came along. You don't even have to learn how to get a good bead going or worry about warp age and penetration.).

When I was growing up, many times kids with no skill, but looking for a short cut to join up with the guys who want to learn sumptin' about cars, would get a motor from one car then put it in any old left over body they had laying around. but since they had no idea of how to properly mount the motor in the new frame they would use angle iron and weld that to the stock motor mount, then weld the end to any convenient location on the frame. Sometimes they wouldn't even get that far, I've seen times when the engine was actually welded into the car. They would weld directly to the engine block, and then weld the other end to the frame. Great for doing donuts in some farmer’s field or on a back road, but not much in the broader idea of building a hot rod. Doesn’t that seem kind of limiting if you needed to pull the motor to repair anything?

Fast forward to modern times. People build these "engineering exercises" , prototypes(?) and stop at that point, call it "done".

If your true intent is just a weekend of playing in the dirt, why would you care if people in a car show don’t want it on the floor? If you were building a “show” piece, it might be worthwhile to build something worth seeing.

You would think... Well, some people might! That when you re-claim a car from a barn or field, you would build with the idea that it would last longer in your hands than it would rusting in the weeds? If you can't "improve" the car, why mess with it?

Back to basics should not mean celebrating lack of knowledge, lack of skill or more important, further ruining something that survived 60, 70 or more years in the wild - just to end up as a temporary play thing. Heck, I would rather see it rust away to dust in field than be "rescued" and further destroyed on purpose, by someone using some misguided thought process that makes him think "somehow" it’s a better use.

That is a very good counterpoint to the idea of "saving" all the old tin rotting away out there.

Personally I love the idea of how it all started, doing what you can with what you've got...but forgoing safety never really sits well with me. And so often when I see the new generation of "rat rods" (never really cared much for the name, just love the principal idea of what it stands for), too often people are trying to recreate something they shouldn't...you can make something look old, wicked, mean or whatever...but never at the sake of safety.

I went to a show last year, guy had a "rat rod" and it was rather wicked looking...chopped, channeled and about an inch off the ground, an engine that was running an 8-71 that with as low as the body was, sat about a good 6 to 8 inches above the roofline. First, I don't know how in the heck he even drove it...he let me sit in it and I could only see directly in front of me...nothing was visible to the right out front of the windshield (or in this case, the lack of), and the rear windows were filled in, so visibility was severly limited. But that wasn't the bad part...he had no floorboards at all!! He tacked (yes...tacked!) some tubing across the frame to hold up the seat, then he just rested his feet on the pedals (I don't know how a passenger would last, there was nothing on that side to support their feet...I know he probably didn't ride with a passenger, but that wasn't the point). Very reminiscent of the Flintstones car.

He said it was the only way he could get the car that low, and he had an uncle in the late 50's did the same thing...well just becuase something was done before, doesn't mean it was done right!

Too often when recreating the past, people think safety can be overlooked...thing is back then in the beginnings of Hot Rodding...people may not have or did not know any better...but they learned and adapted, many ol' timers (hope I don't offend anyone with that!) I've talked with said just that to me, it is an evolution always. But they never intentionally left safety out of the equation...it just sometimes became an after thought.

Mike

I hate the whole Rat Rodding thing. It is the easy way out in my opinion, no skills needed anymore to build a car. There is no direction other than spider webs, skulls and flat black paint. I took my '27 to a show today for the first time. It is running and driving, but still lacks paint and some chrome work, so it was entered in the builder/project vehicle class. There were two other cars in the class, one of which was a non running, non driving Model A sedan Rat Rod piece of crap. This thing had no interior, no paint, and it didn't even have front spindles or hubs, they carried the car in and set it up to look like a cardboard display. It id have the required "Old School Rodz" poser 2" ground clearance stance, and it won a trophy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's all I have to say about that.

not nice to speak bad of those no longer with us, but the time Boyd Coddington picked a museum quality model T to hack into a ratrod I felt sick.
I can see if someone cant spring for 10 grand in bodywork and paint, but IMO they could at least take a little pride in what theyre doing- making it look deliberately crude or cobbled up dont make much sense. an iron 6 cylinder- why not, dont mean it cant be cleaned up a bit. Ive seen a few that were obviously lacking in the elbow grease department- and have seen a few real low dollar cars that were 'all they could be' as you could tell someone took the effort to make the most of what they had available to them- I got more respect for some of those than the gems someone paid 100 grand to have done by someone else. I think the whole ratrod craze took a u-turn from the originators that likely 'used what they had to the best of their abilities' and turned into a bigtime wrestling hyped up kind of thing- like the uglier the better, the sloppier the better...sorry I dont get it.
Someone like Boyd that had so much talent available at his disposal to trash a virgin museum piece in order to try and impress the wrong crowd was very sad...and I really think that one thing will stick with his legacy more so than cadzilla/chezoom, some of the other 'radical but very impressive metalworking wise' cars his shop cranked out. I know I read more negative comments about him after that show than all the positive stuff I ever heard.

Well Boyd was nothing but used axle grease to begin with but thats a whole different debate, The rat rod fad needs to be retired along with the Slow and the Curious craze

I have no idea of how Boyd's name got mixed up in this discussion of thrown together POS, abortion builders, but I guess its fair game for regular folk to piss on the grave of people who are about something, making a difference, hiring new talent and breaking new ground in a hobby/sport and making it pay. It's as American as apple pie. In this country, "If you haven't been sued - then you aren't trying very hard." If you get sued by the Government, you have really done something.

Maybe I am one of the few that actually have some respect for the man. I guess the "right thing" to do after saying that is to acknowledge that he may have made some mistakes, may have missed the mark in some of the cars he built - but, surely their are enough people on that side to keep us entertained with years of snippy little stories of his transgressions - I'll leave that whole area to the vultures that always seem to hover around a dead body, no way I could compete with a majority that lives to find fault ... I wouldn't even no where to start.

I happen to like cantankerous, opinionated, sweatshop drive'n car builders. It's the nail that stands up that gets driven down ... after all, you don't want all the other nails to feel they weren't trying. Someone has to do all the day-to-day R 'n R, belly button stuff.

Well I'm not the only one whose family was hurt with his bad biz practices. He cost us alot of money when we invested with him. As a person he was an ass. Did he make some great cars? Yes. But he should have stuck to that instead of ripping people off for their hard earned money

I agree Beoweolf. I do not understand the negative response people have as they look at another mans attempt to make his dream come true. You know someone made the mistake of thinking those who build cars to meet their own standard and to their own style would even care what others may think. I personally don't care what people think as I work on my car because I am building it for me not the public or some individual. As for me I work on my cars for my own satisfaction no matter what others may think. You have those people who think you should use nothing but Craftsman tools or your not a mechanic. I am no so-called pro in the eyes of some and never will be but I have been working on cars all my life and yes I am human and I have made mistakes. How else do you learn? As a kid my first car I worked on I thought to myself ran and looked like a porches but in reality it looked like what people called a ratrod and ran like one to but I was proud of it no matter what. Now that I am older and some 35 to 40 years behind me I see people building cars that will boggle the human mind and yet they talk about them as they did my first car. I am as old school as they come and I like change. I have cut a many a car up and made drag cars out of them and had fun doing it. My project car I am working on now came out of a field and yes it will be cut and welded to meet my satisfaction and style. People don't understand the fun of doing a car the way you want it to look and having fun. I don't have to meet Fords standards they already did that now its my turn to either race it until there is nothing left but bent metal or restore the car to what I think I would like it to look like and to meet my comforts. As for those who look upon anything I build can like or dislike it but no I had fun in my life and I think Boyd Coddington had the same attitude who cares what they think I like it and thats all that matters.

Well said BigSam

I fully agree. I don't agree with people with too much money buying any car, hackin it up, realizing they can't do it and then toss it out. That is a bit of a slap in the face to people like me who bust their butts off to be able to get their hands on an old gem like that to customize and create into beauties.
However, I also believe that whoever owns it, has the right to do what they wish to do with it. If some want to RatRod it fine, but be a decent person and find a car that is suitable for a RatRod like an old derelict or a writeoff. To buy a museum quality car is a ridiculous flaunting of money and is just pure egoism. These cars are not produced anymore, so the more we see them hacked up, the lesser there are left to find. Their numbers are shrinking, please don't waste them just because you have a lot of money.

If you want to build a car, start hackin up those disposable, dime-a-dozen imports. Do whatever you want with them and toss them aside as you need to. Then, once you have built your skills to a level you feel is worthy, you can buy a good ol classic and start the really fun stuff.

Anyone can buy a welder, a grinder and an old car. It takes a true fanatic to make them all work together and produce a masterpiece.

I learned a long time ago that there is something to be said for a vehicle you aren't afraid to drive.

I bought a bike with 646 miles on it...tried to baby it for a long time, but didn't enjoy it. After it got a scratch on the tank, I got upset...until I realized how stupid that was. Vehicles were made to be driven. I went ahead and removed nearly every painted part on the bike. Took off nearly all the chrome parts and painted them flat black. No need to worry any more, the bike could be ridden.

Why waste $300 on a set of exhaust pipes when I can make a set of flame bent headers for $20 worth of materials, and 2 full days worth of my time? Why pay $150 for a suicide shift kit when I can fab everything needed with parts I have sitting in the garage that I trip over? Same holds true for the parts to turn it into a rigid...

Once I put $20 into the bike, and countless hours of my time, I had something that I could ride in the snow, rain, or sun. It got more positive attention than it ever did in stock form. The only negatives I EVER got were 1. my Dad HATED the suicide shift (he tried to ride it once!) and 2. cops out here HATE straight pipes and pulled me over twice. That was it...

So long as safety is always in the forefront of the builders mind, all is good. Screw the expensive paint jobs that make people too scared to drive their beauty queens...drive it like it was intended