Rat Rods

Rat RodsThe idea of rat rods is a simple one.  Just take your hot rod car of choice, get it running, make it into a hot rod and drive it as is, rust and all.  I like the idea, since it gets people out and enjoying driving their cars.  I know that working on them can be fun also, but waiting while you save up the money isn’t as much fun.

They can also be a great way to practice body work.  If you want to chop the top, go for it.  If you can still see the welds, well that just adds to the character.  The same with anything else.  You can just do what you want and drive it.  No worries about paint etc.  That also means that you won’t have to worry about dings and scratches when you drive rat rods.

The most common paint seems to be either rust, or flat black.  Although I like the one at the beginning of this post with the chalk board paint.  With the thick steel used in the body work of hot rod era cars, they didn’t have as much issue with them rusting through.

The plus to rat rods is that it allows people to experiment with their cars, and not have to worry about making them look pretty as well.  The draw back is that some people like to go overboard in making them look junky. I am fine with leaving it rusted, dented and beat up, but I am not fond of hanging extra junk off of them.

So what does all this have to do with muscle cars?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t see too many muscle cars that I think would qualify as rat rods.  I am not sure if it is more a difference in the culture of the vehicle owners, or if it is due to the fact that the older cars had thicker sheet metal so they didn’t rust through as much.  Either way, the end result is the same.

It could also be that most muscle cars don’t have as many body modifications as rat rods, they tend to have more mechanical modifications than body mods.

I would like to see more muscle cars done like rat rods.  I don’t mean changing the existing ones, since that wouldn’t make sense, but people who have a muscle car that isn’t “show worthy” and either driving it as is, or painting it flat black and driving it.  I like the look of flat black paint on a car.  It also seals up the body so it won’t rust, but doesn’t show dents etc as much.

So what if your muscle car that you love has different color body panels, get it out and drive it, or paint them all the same with spray cans.  I think that is better than leaving it sit in the garage for years until you can afford to paint it.  No carpet, just tell people you took it out to save weight. 😉

Can anyone argue that it is more fun to stare at a car waiting to make it perfect than be out driving it?  I don’t mean the car you are working on, because that is fun in it’s own right, I mean the car you don’t have the money to finish.  Just get out there and drive it and don’t worry about what it looks like.  Or take that money you were going to put into the paint, and put it into the engine and have fun with a beater old car that goes fast.

Need more proof that rat rods are cool, check out this:

Just the sound alone…

I know that muscle cars are beautiful painted nice.  The styling of them, and the attitude is something that isn’t present in today’s generic looking cars.  But we should enjoy all of them, not just the nicely painted ones.  Drive now, and pay (for paint) later.

 


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