IS the Rat-rod Fad picking up steam?

[GAR]

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Picking up steam, or a fading fad?

If you wanna build a rod, you use what you can find. Out in the midwest, they're really fucking BROKE!

But they'll spend 3 grand on a motor, yet 500 bucks on a chassis. They usually forego paint and chrome - unlike the previous ratrod fad of the early-to-mid 60's these cool cats are trying to emulate.

But why so many punk rockers? They're do-it-yourselfer types, thats about it far as I can see. Pretty cool, rockers with rocker chicks and their ugly machines.

They're even taking to stripping the paint, then flashing the bare metal with etching acid and primers to uglify everything but the chrome on the motor, or wheels.

I think it's fantastic, but I'm in LA where on the weekends you could see a few of 'em on Hollywood Blvd or Sunset driving back to the freeways late at night - I'd swear I once or twice saw Dave's sled heading back towards town one night.. but I'm seeing more and more of 'em.

Stock painted steel wheels, opened fabric or no fabric roofs, Zee'd chassisuses.. welding supplies have never been cheaper, too anyone could chop, channel and cut Z's in frames and coils..

Is this fad taking off in yer neck of the woods> see any of this where you are?

[78/84 guy]

Lots of them in the great white north. Starting to be to many, but they are cool !! Alway's interesting to see what kind of shit people bolt on them.

[twonabomber]

i've seen a few. one was a coupe body with a small truck bed, practically sitting on the ground. we'll see what this summer brings.

i dislike chrome as well. once i tear into my Wagoneer the chrome will be the first thing to get the boot. things i need, like the side mirrors and door handles, will get sandblasted and shot body color or flat black.

[chefcraig]

The market for these sort of street rods is currently in the toilet. A friend of mine sold prefabricated fiberglass tubs for this style of auto. For a small investment (you'd supply a frame, engine, tranny, ect.) you could craft one of these things, or a roadster and even a mid-sixties Cobra. That is until recently, around 2005 when the entire enterprise hit the wall and the bottom dropped out.

If you watched the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction from Scottsdale, Arizona last month on SPEED Channel (Yup, the one EVH unloaded his pair of rather dubious street rods), you'd have witnessed how remarkably poorly this form of hot rod was selling. Being a gear-head myself, I watched a great deal of the exhaustive coverage provided, and noticed that about the only type of car getting any value now is various muscle cars from the sixties and early seventies.

Even local car shows have gone bust. People simply can not afford the time, energy and gas needed to drag these machines around. In many cases the cars are presented in order to find a buyer, and quite frankly there are not many of those folks around. This market is predicated upon the buyer's disposable income, and let's face it...who amongst us has much of that lying around these days?

[twonabomber]

The market for these sort of street rods is currently in the toilet. A friend of mine sold prefabricated fiberglass tubs for this style of auto. For a small investment (you'd supply a frame, engine, tranny, ect.) you could craft one of these things, or a roadster and even a mid-sixties Cobra. That is until recently, around 2005 when the entire enterprise hit the wall and the bottom dropped out.

that sounds more like kit cars instead of rat rods.

speaking of expensive, here's a place by me that restores and sells muscle cars and "restomods." they do nice work, but holy shit the coin they want for some of these. place is busy too, they are opening a new showroom and the existing building will only be the workshop.

http://bestofshowautomotive.com/

[78/84 guy]

Just sold a 69 Charger for 15 large. Not mint but really nice. 5 years ago it was worth 19 or 20.

[GAR]

Rat Rodding is a thumb in the eye of the whole idea of detailing your '56 Nomad, concourse mint condition, worth 60K.

First rule of all, the more it looks like you dragged the chassis out of the weeds or a crick, the better.

Second rule, there are no rules, only aesthetics the way the beaners do their lowrider bullshit.

And the reason they don't do Rat Rods is they'd have to figure out how to chop channel and seam stuff to make the onlooker wonder "gee it looks like a DeSoto but it's really tiny." Or how to chrome up custom fab engine bay parts, that takes a few braincells, same as tubbing the trunk for Mickey slicks.

I think this fad has caught on to becoming a mainstay in American Culture because every engine control, every motor function nowadays is managed by an ECU.. with software updates!

They didn't have software updates in the days of the Batmobile and the Munstermobile... that was all mechanical cut n polish stuff. NO pussy "software updates" available for Dellorto carbs, sorry!